The Highwayman's Folly
Page 22
Beth took a fruit fork in hand. “Don’t tease me. I enjoy it more when I’m less tired . . .” Beth stabbed the fork’s tines viciously into the nearest tangerine. “. . . and less confused.”
“Give me the chance to leave you less confused.”
Beth knew what he meant but found her mind caught on the words leave you.
Rhys’ hand briefly rested on her knee below the table. Beth’s eyes flashed around the group instinctively to see if the lapse in decorum had been noticed. What did it matter if it had? Had she not promised herself not to care?
Rhys leaned in to whisper to her. “Can we speak privately after this?”
There was something about feeling his breath on her neck, something so painfully overwhelming. Beth did her best to ignore the question. Distractedly, she looked up and down the length of the table. It took her a moment to realize whose face she was looking for. Ignoring Rhys’ question, she looked to her cousin.
“Where’s your brother, Mr. Weldon, this morning? Still asleep?”
Allison’s smile faltered, but Lord Weldon jumped in instead. “He went off with friends after the gathering, and I’m supposing he’ll stay with them until he sets back off for Greece. Bit of a free spirit, that one.” Lord Weldon said it cheerfully enough, but his face sank—the face of a father wistful for the rare company of his son.
Beth’s expression fell too, and she met Allison’s eyes, which were writ with apology. No matter. She could still write to Stefano and plan her trip to Greece.
With nowhere else to throw her attention, Beth finally turned to answer Rhys’ question but was interrupted by the sharp rings of a fork against a champagne glass. Her father. Several relaxed and happy faces swiveled to attend to his signal. Beth recognized so few of them.
One eager woman, a complete stranger, silver-haired and elegant, pounced first. “What is it Mr. Clarke? Are you going to announce an engagement?” The woman’s eyes flitted back and forth excitedly between Rhys and Beth. Beth froze at the shocking inquiry and found it suddenly difficult to swallow the blackberry in her mouth. She heard Rhys snort into his napkin.
Mr. Clarke waved away the woman’s question with a smile. “I merely wanted to make everyone aware of a guest this morning who holds a great deal of my gratitude . . .”
Oh God, Papa . . .
Rhys stood out among the aristocrats. He looked sharp and presentable, but his waistcoats had no floral embellishments and his boots retained a patina that could not be polished away.
Her father gestured to Rhys. Beth sat up straight, feeling everyone’s eyes cast their way.
“As many of you, I’m sure, are aware, my daughter experienced a terrible ordeal a few years back—”
“Kidnappings aren’t polite fare for the table, Papa.” Beth stroked the stem of her glass.
The silver-haired woman gasped. “A kidnapping?!”
“See, not everyone here knows,” said Beth, taking a sip of champagne.
“Yes, Ceci—I would have avoided the indelicate term, but it is accurate.”
Ceci? Now it was Beth whose eyes flitted between this woman and her father with curiosity. Her father did not typically make a habit of calling ladies by pet names.
“It doesn’t matter,” said her father firmly, trying to regain everyone’s attentions. “What matters is that this gentleman here, Mr. Osbourne Booker, is a Bow Street Runner and was her rescuer. I was overjoyed to run into him in Bartswell and ask him to be our guest here. Things were too chaotic three years ago to give him the deserved hospitality.” Mr. Clarke raised his glass. “To you, Mr. Booker.”
Glasses went up around the table and so did eyebrows. Including Beth’s. Had Rhys been under the same roof all night?
Looking around the table, Beth saw faces that were scandalized to varying degrees. Mr. Clarke, however, glowed with a father’s pride. Beth sighed and dragged a finger around the rim of her glass. Her improprieties were hereditary.
The woman her father called Ceci leaned over the table conspiratorially. Her bosom was about to spill right over her lace like a waterfall. She nearly tipped over her cup of chocolate as she folded her hands in front of her. To be drunk at such an early hour—the thought was dizzying. “Who took you? How long for? What was it like?” she begged.
Beth felt her cheeks heat. “I don’t remember much, honestly.”
The back of Rhys’ knuckles brushed against her skirts. He leaned in and spoke low to her. “You have a rapt audience, Miss Clarke. Don’t squander the opportunity.”
His words were an injection of sense. Beth lifted her eyes to meet Ceci’s. “You see, I don’t recall much because I was very sick at the end. But I do recall sleeping in the woods. We were forced to make camp.”
Ceci pulled back into her chair, a shocked hand to her bosom. But her face belied her delight at the increasing scandal of the account.
Several others at the table were noticeably lending their ears but with more discerning expressions. Beth punctuated the confession with another sip of her drink.
“Tell them about the rest of it, Miss Clarke,” said Rhys.
She looked at him sharply. “The rest?”
Rhys turned back to the table, his face, all seriousness. “Yes. Tell them how you killed the wolf.”
Champagne sucked into her nose jarringly as she choked on her drink. The gentle murmur of the breakfast conversation died down from end to end. All eyes on her. She looked desperately to her cousin for help, but Allison clenched two fists in front of her mouth, ready to bubble over with unrestrained exhilaration.
“Darling?” her father murmured.
Beth licked her lips. “Yes. There was the wolf that I killed. The only wolves in the country found me, and I managed to make them one fewer.” She put a hand on her father’s arm. “I didn’t want to frighten you with the story before.”
No one spoke. Beth let her gaze wander shyly back to the man beside her. Rhys’ eyes were almost watering with brazen approval. Perhaps he’d not changed so much.
Ceci lifted a napkin to her lips, trying to conceal a chuckle that escaped into the yawning silence anyway. The sound turned fast into throes of laughter. Ceci tried to speak, but she had to wait for the spirit that seized to tire out first. She reached across the table and put a hand, heavy with jewelry, onto Beth’s wrist. With the other hand, the woman wiped a tear of mirth from her eye.
“Oh, dear thing, you’re joking. You had me. I completely believed you.” A couple of nervous laughs rose up around the table before bewildered guests at either end resumed their prior conversations. Her father clutched at his heart in relief, and his attention was soon pulled away by Ceci.
Beth’s chest lifted against her stays, and she dared to look up at Rhys.
He mouthed the words, meet me.
She nodded, imperceptible to any but him. “I like to ride in the fields beyond the pond after breakfast.”
Rhys raised his eyebrows and popped a grape into his mouth. “What a pleasant ritual.”
Chapter 19
Rhys slowed his horse. There she was at the crest of a knoll, in the shade of a tree, looking down on him from atop her dapple gray, as if from a throne. It struck him to see her sitting sidesaddle, holding her seat so expertly. He could imagine her racing through a vale, moving perfectly with the horse.
He nudged his horse up the hill until he joined her.
Now that he was near, she seemed to cast her gaze anywhere but at him. Her discomfort was plain, and he longed to draw her back into the lightness they’d eventually found at breakfast.
“Did I not once tell you that you can say absolutely anything because your story is too legendary to be believed?”
“You did,” she admitted.
“I hope that I—”
“May I go first?”
Rhys withdrew his words and nodded.
It took a moment for that to settle. It couldn’t be possible, but he knew better than to think her a liar. “Why do you say that?” His gut tightened with dread curiosity.
“I saw him in the village. I didn’t really believe it—dismissed it as my mind playing tricks. But then you arrived. And now I don’t know what to think.”
Rhys struggled to imagine that Sol had survived his injury. He’d resented having to shoot the man, but still, the unlikelihood—
“Beth, I swear on my life I know nothing of it.”
“What else can you swear on?”
Three days in the woods. My own bewitching. A life, reformed. A million things.
Rhys put a hand to his heart, choosing levity over vulnerability. “May the deadly geese of Greenthorne feast on my eyeballs if I lie.”
Beth raised her chin. The missed shot at her laughter made him ache.
“How do you know about the geese?”
“You told me. You told me about them as you grew more ill. I wanted to know all about Greenthorne. I wanted to distract you from your discomfort.”
He watched as her eyes sorted through the air for memories. He waited patiently, enjoying the small shifts in her expression—the way her softly parted lips moved around small, unspoken words. Eventually, she began to nod.
“I wish I better remembered that,” she said.
“I can fill in the rest. I can tell you everything.”
“But you can’t tell me if Sol is alive or nearby?”
Rhys shrugged, at a loss. “I can’t. As you know, I’m here regarding another.”
Beth stiffened. “Desmarais.”
Her horse sensed the tension and backed away, suddenly uncomfortable on the bit. Rhys reached a hand out for its cheekpiece to steady it, but Beth reacted with a hard grip on his wrist.
“Leave it,” she said.
He did. “Can we not get down and talk awhile?”
“Perhaps I feel safer on horseback.”
Safer. The word slammed into his breast like a cudgel, taking the wind from him. He wanted to be gentle, but he could no longer keep the hurt from his voice. “Do you fear me, Beth?”
“I’ve never feared fewer things in my whole life, Rhys. That doesn’t mean I should not look after myself.”
“No. I suppose it doesn’t.” He looked down at his hands. The leather of his riding gloves creaked as he made fists on the reins. “Beth, I did unforgivable things to you in the beginning—”
“Did you come to me that final night?”
“What?”
“You just said that you could fill in my missing memories, so I wish for you to try this one.” Her eyes pierced into his and the breeze blew stray hairs across her gaze. Rhys tightened his grip on his reins to keep himself from brushing her hair away.
“Tell me, Rhys. That last night at the folly. Did you come back into my room and apologize? Did you promise to take me away from there? Did I dream it?”
“It was not a dream.”
Her gaze cooled, but she still grit her teeth. “Then where were you and Harry when those bastards started plunging me into the trough?”
“We were in the woods, preparing the diversion that we would use to get you the hell out of there. I couldn’t have known that Lionel’s patience would break that morning.”
“You mean you didn’t expect the devil to act a fiend?”
There was enough truth in that to leave him bleeding. Her pain snapped against his heart like a bullwhip, and his anguish roared up through him. “Then why let me take you in my arms in the woods? Why kiss me? Why let me linger on your—” his neck rolled over the word as though it were too big for his throat, “—body?”
She sat completely still while her horse moved beneath her, agitated.
“Why, Beth? If I had disappointed you so?”
“It was a very cold night,” she said.
No. That wasn’t it. Don’t lie. He reached again for her horse’s bridle, damned if she liked it or not. Their knees brushed as Rhys drew near. “One doesn’t get upset over the lack of a proper goodbye if it was just one very cold night.”
“Why do I have to say everything? When do I get to hear how you feel?” Her eyes lit into him as she lowered her tone. “What was that very cold night to you, Rhys?” She chopped at his arm with her fist until he released his grip on her tack. Then she took off on Cutter, cantering down to the meadow.
He had wanted to see her ride, and now he had his wish. Her skirts were a flurry at her side as she drove forward. He gave chase.
It brought him back to when he’d furiously ridden for the doctor’s house, tears of desperation and fear slashing at his temples. Beth had known nothing of that. She didn’t know how long three years were for him too. Didn’t know how his heart had twisted and choked as their separation had drawn nearer.
Dewey’s death had long ago left a fear in him, that any close attachments might lead to tragedy, particularly of his own doing. He’d already visited such adversity on Beth, yet somehow, she’d ridden away from that folly with something kind left in her heart for him. He didn’t know what he’d do now if some of that affection weren’t still there. He didn’t deserve such care, but she deserved to know that such affection was returned all along.
Beth had accelerated to a dangerous gallop. It had been one thing to imagine her racing across a vale, but it was another thing entirely to see her take up such a powerful gait when she was not riding securely astride. Rhys’ chest tightened and he slowed his own horse, hoping she might slow down, but she did not.
Her horse leapt over something as it disappeared into a thick patch of trees. He followed, leaning forward as his horse leapt over the same overgrown ditch. He slowed down as he entered the grove, but Beth was nowhere to be seen. Then her horse sidled into the path . . .
Without her on it.
It was Beth’s own fault. Riding like that when so upset. Tearing off on her horse on the unfamiliar property. The hop over the ditch hadn’t thrown her, but the trees’ low branches had all threatened to brutally dismount her as she tried to slow Cutter down. She’d saved herself from their punishment by opting for a more urgent descent—jumping off into a bed of ivy.
Now on her back, she found herself intact enough, though her white lawn skirt might need be dyed green to salvage it. Shifting, she noticed the first sign of achiness.
She heard Rhys’ horse plunge forth into the area and stop. Heavy boots thudded to the ground. Beth’s stomach fluttered and she stroked it in a useless bid to soothe herself. Three years. All that waiting, and he hadn’t come for her. He’d only returned to warn her of Desmarais and now she didn’t even care to hear it.
She listened to the soles of Rhys’ boots pivot frantically in the dirt and grass. Searching. “Beth? Beth?”
Guiltily, she couldn’t bring herself to cry out in response. She was too afraid of hearing her own voice crack wistfully on his name. She heard the intake of his breath at the very moment he spotted her—
“Beth!” and his steps grew quickly louder.
He flung himself down to her in the ivy. A passing shock frisked over her on realizing she was straddled by him. He held her face in his hands, the sweat in the leather reminding her faintly of his scent in winter.
“Can you hear me?”
She hoped that the crinkle in her brow was enough of an answer. She was quite obviously awake. But still, he looked so frightened. It recalled memories of Dyckson—the fear in his eyes and how that day had changed things. She nodded, making the stems of ivy rustle around her.
The heat of Rhys’ thighs sank straight through her gauzy springtime layers. Her eyes closed to take in the feeling. Just for one breath. She inhaled deeply. But savori
ng the feel of him led to the unbidden onslaught of a much more indulgent scene. Their lips together. Her hips rising up to him. The fabric of her skirts spilling out from between his fingers. An impatient tightness arising—
Such thoughts were infuriating in how they controlled her. Her nails clawed frustratedly into the dirt beside her, and beneath her palm, she felt a stick. Her fingers closed around it and she brought it up to Rhys’ throat like a dagger.
His expression pinched in curiosity at what she’d just done. So did hers. But she gripped her little stick, fierce and unwavering.
You should have returned sooner. Three years on, Beth had a life to defend. She would leave soon. Open up her world on the Continent and come back stronger, as Allison had. She would embody her mistakes. Live in her tawdry reputation. She would see every city and dance with every Stefano. She had plans . . .
But her hand shook. The firm line of Rhys’ lips twitched at the corner, outlined by the familiar shadow of emergent chin hairs. His handsome eyes were blinking against something—the infuriating man was about to laugh. As soon as she realized it, Beth had to roll her lips between her teeth to prevent the same reaction. It was helpless for them both.
He must be just as aware as she of what sort of scene they made. And just as aware of how it echoed a memory from their past. The rumbles of impending laughter quaked silently up her body until both she and Rhys erupted at once.
“Do it then, Beth. End me here and now,” said Rhys, through charges of laughter.
She snorted as she pressed the stick against him. It bowed before snapping against his neck. Then they laughed harder.
“I should have taken my chance when I had a hot iron in my hand.”
He collapsed against her as they worked through their joyous fits. This time, the feeling of him against her didn’t bring on heat between her legs so much as it warmed a place in her chest—a lonely place.
When the laughter died out, he pushed up on his arms to gaze down at her again.