by Jo Goodman
"To save yourself."
"A thief—"
"Because you were taught."
"And a murderer."
"You were never that."
"But it could have been different so easily."
"But it wasn't." He drew her onto his lap and into the security of the circle of his arms. "Don't dwell on what might have been."
Brooklyn laid her cheek against his shoulder and felt Ryland absorb the tremor that swept through her body. She needed this closeness. "What about what might be? Our baby. Aren't you frightened it could be the same with our child? What kind of legacy have I given to our babe?"
He stroked her back with the heel of his hand. Up and down, up and down. "Courage," he said after a moment. "Our child will have courage and spirit and strength and more than his share of stubbornness." He dropped his head and his lips touched her hair. His tender smile was pressed against her. "He'll be smart as a whip, probably arrive counting his own fingers and toes."
She laughed softly. "Well, I don't think he'll know the lineages of the royal houses of England right off. Perhaps by the time he's three or four."
"I feel certain of it," he replied gravely.
Closing her eyes, Brooklyn placed one hand on Ryland's chest. His heart beat steadily against her palm. "I suspect all women in my... umm... delicate condition worry about their child," she said softly.
"I suspect so."
"I think I was more frightened than angry."
"It's all right. You're allowed to be both."
Her voice was dry. "That's very generous of you."
He pretended not to hear the whisper of sarcasm and answered seriously. "I like to think so."
Raising her head, Brooklyn placed a line of kisses on Ryland's jaw. At her back she felt his hand pause and then resume its up-and-down motion, this time with her comfort in mind less than her desire. Her arms circled his shoulders, and she drew herself upright, teasing his eyes, his cheeks, the corners of his mouth with her lips.
Ryland's fingers released the fasteners at the back of her gown. His hands slipped beneath the material, beneath her chemise, and rested against her warm skin. After a moment his hands began to move, rubbing, sliding, rubbing. He heard her small gasp of pleasure as she moved sinuously in his arms with self-satisfied feline grace. Burying his face in the curve of her neck, Ryland nipped at her skin with his teeth, flicked her with the warm, wet edge of his tongue. He drew the parted gown down her shoulders. She moved. Her hip pressed against his thighs, against his arousal. Ryland's short groan of pleasure was muffled in her fragrant fall of hair.
He set Brooklyn away from him, and she stood on legs that trembled slightly, her eyes dark in their desiring. She undressed quickly. He did the same. They watched one another closely, rarely looking away. The clothes were a puddle at their feet.
Ryland threw back the covers on the bed and held out one hand to Brooklyn. She took it, stepping over the puddle of clothes, and was locked in a fierce embrace, her swollen breasts crushed against his chest, her mouth crushed against his mouth. They tumbled on the bed. It creaked beneath their combined weight. They heard it, broke their kiss, and smiled in unison.
"It's the baby," he said. He placed the flat of his hand on her belly. It cupped the faint swelling. "Fat fellow."
Her hand fell over his, held it there, and then pushed his lower to the triangle of dark hair at the apex of her thighs. "Touch me," she said. Her legs parted slightly, inviting him.
Watching her eyes, her astonishingly eloquent eyes, Ryland's fingers searched for the small bud of pleasure, found it, then stroked gently, teasingly. She was already moist with wanting him. He lowered his head, and his mouth traced the fragile line of her collarbone. He dipped his tongue making a damp path across her pale skin. His lips closed over the tip of one breast, sucked in the nipple, and drew on it until it was pebble hard against the edge of his tongue. There was a restless movement, a sigh, a moan caught in the back of her throat. He released her breast and his mouth rested above her heart. He felt its quickening, kissed the spot tenderly, then moved toward her other breast, creating a spiral of pleasure until his mouth closed over the nipple.
The tips of Brooklyn's fingers glided across his shoulders, fell along his arms, down his back. She slipped one hand between them, and the taut plane of his abdomen rippled as she brushed his skin. Her hand dropped lower, her fingers circled the hot, hard heat of him. She wanted him inside her, filling her, holding her to him with the powerful movements of his body, their arms and legs tangled, their mouths locked, the soul touching. She thought she told him all that she wanted, but what she said was his name.
Ryland's senses were filled with the sound of her voice, the musky scent of her flesh, the soft, yielding dampness of her flesh. Pulling her hand from him, he moved lower, gliding across her skin like a husky whisper. His lips and tongue replaced his hand. He cupped her buttocks, lifted, and held her against his mouth. Brooklyn's fingers threaded in his hair, gripped him, then relaxed until they fell away and she clutched the sheet beneath her instead.
She said his name again, her voice raw with passion. A delicious sense of tension coiled at the point where his mouth excited her; then it swept outward, touching her limbs, firing her blood so that she felt hot and cold in the same moment. She arched and was still during that seemingly infinite pause before pleasure shuddered through her.
Ryland raised himself and watched her face. She reached for him, pulled him close, and they kissed deeply. Brooklyn was hardly aware of the movement that brought him thrusting inside her. Had she made it? Had he? It didn't matter, not really. He was where she wanted him now, and she felt herself tightening around him, trying to hold him within her velvet walls as her legs curved over the backs of his thighs. He supported himself on his forearms, though she didn't mind his weight or the hard, unyielding breadth of his chest against her breasts. He rocked. She captured his rhythm, moving with him, and felt the heat and tension blossom again.
Ryland withdrew almost to the point of leaving her, then thrust again, more deeply this time, and she cried out, not from pain but from the way he seemed to touch the very essence of her. It was not what he was doing to her body; it was the manner in which he held her eyes with the dark, fathomless depths of his own.
Above her Ryland's face changed. The hard lines of self-denial became more prominent, harsher, in the moment before he found release. Then they dissolved, faded, even as his breathing altered and the cadence changed, quickening at first, then quieting until the silence in the room was complete.
They lay side by side, facing one another and holding hands. Their fingers were intertwined, and they folded and unfolded like the petals of a flower, the bedside lamp cast light over Ryland's shoulder, and Brooklyn's face was bathed in its flickering orange glow.
"I love you," she said.
"Even though I'm suspicious and infuriating?"
She nodded. "That rankled a bit, did it?"
"A bit. But it's the truth."
"Ry—"
He loosed his hand and pressed one finger to her lips, silencing her while he traced the outline of her mouth. "I have to be suspicious," he said. "Of everything... everyone. I love you too much to lose you because I wasn't on my guard. It never occurred to me that what I said about your uncle would offend you. For that I'm sorry."
She stilled his hand, drawing it to the side of her neck. "But do you still think that he is involved with Preston, Chandler, and Sarah?"
"No," he answered unhesitatingly and wondered what purpose the truth would have served in this instance. He felt a moment's guilt when he saw that she had accepted his lie, and it was then he realized how much she needed to believe him. If he was wrong about David Pendleton, then explaining his reasoning now would only upset her unnecessarily. Everything Pendleton said may have been fact. There was always that possibility. Still, there was part of him that wished he had never suggested they come to Brighton Oaks.
"Is it because of
me?" she asked. "Are you afraid I'll be angry again? I won't, you know."
"No, it's not because of you. It's because I've rethought some things. And I don't mind you being angry." He looked at her, considering. "I like the way you set things right."
Her eyes narrowed, and she gave him the sharp edge of her voice. "I didn't make love as an apology for anything I did or said."
"I know. I was teasing."
She was skeptical at first. "Were you?"
"Yes."
She thought about that. "Oh. That's all right, then."
"I'm glad," he said gravely.
Brooklyn's hand curled into a fist, and she grazed his stomach with it, laughing when Ryland pretended great pain. He turned out the lamp, and soon they were asleep, sharing the same pillow, their flushed and sated bodies curled as one.
Brooklyn stood alone in the library, fingering the ivory chess pieces that she and Ryland had admired the night before. As nervous as she had been about telling her story to her uncle, she found a certain peace in touching something familiar. Ryland had sensed her unease and offered a game while they waited for David Pendleton to return from his bedchamber. They had each made three moves before they heard David's approach. Now she studied the board that had been forgotten in the wake of more important matters. She lifted her queen's bishop and considered capturing a pawn.
"Do you play, Brooklyn?" asked David Pendleton as he strode into the room.
Startled by her uncle's abrupt entrance, Brook replaced the bishop quickly, as if she had been doing something wrong. "Not well, I'm afraid. Though occasionally I beat Ryland."
David smiled widely, pleased. "Then you are too modest. I suspect your husband is an excellent player. He has exceptional instincts." He walked over to the small table where the board was placed. He was wearing riding boots, and bits of dirt and straw marked his trail as he approached. The drapes at the tall windows had been drawn back, the late-morning sun scattered light across the polished oak floor. He stepped into one of the squares of sunshine and examined the board. "You began a game?" he asked.
She nodded. "Before you returned downstairs last night. We... I needed something to occupy my thoughts. I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all." He regarded her a moment, taking in the anxious light in her clear eyes. "Are you nervous with me?" He said it as if it astonished him.
"A little," she said truthfully. "I think it's because you're family."
That amused David Pendleton. "All the more reason you should feel at your ease." He touched her shoulder. "Have you had breakfast? Met my wife and our boys?"
"Yes." She smiled, regaining her poise. "And yes. Aunt Dorothea was very gracious about having me thrust upon her without warning. And John and Gabriel were extremely entertaining. Somehow I thought they would be older."
"I hope you didn't say as much to them. They like to think that twelve and thirteen is a very great age."
Brooklyn could understand that. She had once entertained similar thoughts. "Have you seen Ryland this morning? He was gone when I woke. No one seems to know where he's taken himself."
David thrust his large hands into the deep pockets of his jacket. He moved his hands back and forth in an absent gesture so that the front of his jacket flapped, unwittingly reminding Brooklyn of an ungainly bird. "Didn't he mention it to you?" he asked. "He said he did."
She frowned, trying to remember. "I don't think so."
"About the police," he prompted.
Brooklyn recalled Ryland shaking her shoulder, mumbling something about the authorities, then kissing her soulfully on the mouth. Her eyes softened when she thought about that kiss. "I'm afraid I don't remember his exact words. I tend to be muzzy-headed in the morning. He's gone to the police?"
"Yes. I'm glad I caught him on his way out the door, otherwise none of us would know where he is. Ryland was going to take the buggy you brought here but I gave him one of my thoroughbreds."
She glanced at the clock. It was nearly noon. "Shouldn't he be back by now?"
"He said he was going to stay in town and meet us at your grandmother's. He'll wait somewhere nearby, and when he sees Sarah and me leave, you and he can go into the house."
"I really was muzzy-headed. I don't remember anything at all about that. In fact, I think he said he wouldn't be gone long."
"Perhaps he changed his mind after leaving you."
"That must be it. How soon should we go?"
"Actually that's why I sought you out. I lost track of time in the fields. We should leave right away. The carriage is ready and waiting in the drive. I'm taking Rose with us. She'll stay with Abby while I'm with Sarah. You understand you'll have to be dropped off some distance from the house. It wouldn't do for Sarah to see us together. Ryland said if he's late you should go ahead without him. In any event he'll be there long before I return with Sarah."
Brooklyn nodded. The chessboard caught her attention again. "I think I'll make my move," she said, picking up her queen and advancing it three squares.
David stayed her hand. "Oh, no. Not that piece. Certainly not. I believe you had the bishop earlier. A much better move."
"No," she said softly. "This move is fine."
"But she's vulnerable."
"Aren't we all?" she replied enigmatically. "I will get my coat. It's in my bedchamber." Brooklyn started to move past her uncle.
"It's warm today. I don't think you'll need it. Your gown is appropriate for traveling."
"Very well." She turned the full force of her smile on him, wondering if it looked brittle. It had been a long time since she had been required to act as if nothing was happening when in truth her world was shattering. "I'm ready then. And very anxious to meet my grandmother."
Ryland rubbed the back of his aching head. There was a lump the size of a plover's egg at the base of his skull. By all rights he should have been dead. He reasoned that he was supposed to be. Surely that had been David Pendleton's intent when he lured Ryland to the stables with the offer of one of his horses. What he had offered instead was a sharp blow with the flat side of a shovel. Ryland remembered going down like a rock, meeting the dirt full in the face, and then... nothing.
Obviously there was value in being thick-headed, he thought wryly. He wondered how David could have mistaken his death. It was certain that he had; otherwise, Ryland knew he would have been trussed and gagged. David hadn't thought the precaution was necessary. When he opened his eyes and saw where he was, Ryland found out why.
He realized instantly that he was no longer in the stable. Anyone could have stumbled upon him there. David had thought of that and acted accordingly. Ryland's prison was without light, and he knew a moment of panic thinking the blow had rendered him blind. He pressed his eyes with the heels of his hands, forcing himself to think calmly and rationally. In his pocket he found several matches, lighted one against the heel of his shoe, and the blessed flame told him his immediate fears were groundless. He glanced around the dirt cellar, seeking the door, and located it as the match burned his fingertips. Cursing softly, Ryland dropped the match on the damp ground and stood.
Or tried to stand. His head hit the low ceiling of the cellar. Tears came to his eyes at the return of the near blinding pain. Small clumps of dirt cascaded over him. He cursed again, hunkered down, and kept one hand in front of him as he walked awkwardly toward the door. It was constructed of a single piece of wood, not slats, and very heavy. His fingers traced the edges, getting a sense of its size. It sloped inward at a gradual angle, leading Ryland to suspect that the cellar was probably part of a small hillside. There was also no light around any part of the frame, which Ryland believed meant the door was somehow concealed on the outside, covered with dirt, tufts of grass, or thick brush.
Ryland pushed at the door with both hands, trying to force it open. It didn't budge. Metal scraped against metal. The door was held in place by an iron bar on the other side. Furious, he kicked at the door and didn't even notice the pain in his foot. Deciding to b
low a hole through the door, perhaps get the attention of someone nearby—if there was someone nearby—Ryland reached for the gun he had strapped on this morning.
Naturally it was gone. Before he gave full vent to his frustration he got down on his hands and knees and methodically scoured every inch of the floor, hoping that it had fallen out of his holster when David dragged him in the cellar. It hadn't. It wasn't anywhere on the floor.
He threw himself against the door, pounded at it with his fists, and shouted until his voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper. Energy spent, he sagged against one of the walls and admitted the truth to himself. David hadn't finished him off in the stables because it was just as easy to let him die here. Slowly. And David didn't have to bloody his hands or dirty them. The cellar was a ready-made grave.
Brooklyn didn't know what to expect. She had serious doubts that her uncle was taking her to Abby's, but she went along because she didn't know what else to do. That she had been lied to, she didn't doubt, but she didn't think her uncle knew that he had given himself away. His comment was innocent enough. It was said offhandedly, in a manner that nearly captured Brooklyn's trust. But she knew better, knew Ryland better. He would never have suggested that she go into Abby's home without him. He had been adamant on the subject before, when she had first told him to take Sarah riding. It was not the sort of thing he would change his mind about. There was an element of danger involved, and Ryland would not send her into it without discussing it first—in great detail and at great length. There was always the chance the unexpected could happen. Chandler could return. Preston might drop in. A stranger could upset Abby to the point where her health was endangered.
No, Ryland would never relay a message like that though her uncle. Brooklyn was certain now that Ry had promised her he would be back soon. She wished she could remember their conversation better. In her lap her hands were very still, the knuckles white. She agreed with something her uncle had just shared with her because it was clear from his expression that he expected agreement. She had no idea what had been said.