by Juliana Gray
He turned her on her back and rose above her. His eyes were fierce, glowing. “Don’t speak as if we won’t be together. Don’t even think it, by God. When this child is born, Lilibet, we’ll be man and wife. I swear it on my life.”
She cupped the back of his head with her hands. “Don’t say that. It doesn’t matter, Roland. I’m long past the point of caring what anybody else thinks. I’ve been married, and it was meaningless. A sham, a travesty.” She drew his face down to hers and kissed him. “This is what’s real, Roland. This is what’s sacred. This bond, this union between us.”
“But legally, he’s still your husband. Legally he still has dominion over you, and I won’t allow it. By God, not a moment longer than I can. As soon as I’ve hidden you and Philip safely away, I’m going to find him and end this.”
“No. No, you’re not!” She pushed herself out from underneath him, levering herself upright in the narrow bed. “What are you talking about? He’s a dangerous man, Roland. You don’t understand.”
He rose up with her, the blanket falling away from his body to expose the broad reach of his chest, burnished gold in the candlelight and curving with hard, bladelike muscles. “I assure you,” he said, his voice low and growling, “I’m capable of holding my own against Somerton.”
With one fist she pounded the sheet next to her. “No, you’re not. Listen to me, Roland. He’s a professional. He’s a . . . I can’t explain it . . . He does things for the government, secret things, brutal things . . .”
He captured her wrist with his hand and brought it to his lips. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll win. I’ve cunning of my own, strength of my own. More than you realize. And more than that: I’ve you to fight for. You and our family.”
“Don’t do it, Roland. Please,” she said, in a whisper. A cold pool of fear spilled through her body, spreading to her fingers, her toes. “I’ve seen what he can do. It’s worse than you can imagine, a different world from ours. Listen to me. I followed him one night, thinking he was off to some strumpet’s bed, and instead . . . It was unspeakable, Roland, what he did. I saw him kill a man.”
“What did you see?” He caught her other hand and spoke with urgency. “Tell me, Lilibet. When was this? What did you see?”
She shook her head back and forth. “A year or so ago. I can’t say more; it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to remember it. But it was horrible, Roland. If he did that to you, I’d die. I couldn’t live, knowing it was because of me.” She twisted her fingers around, until she was gripping his hands. “Don’t go after him, Roland. We’ll find some quiet place, some secret place. He’ll never find us. When he’s dead, when Philip inherits, we can return to England . . .”
“And meanwhile live our lives in fear of discovery? Looking over our shoulders for him? No, Lilibet. I won’t give him that power. And I’ll be damned if I allow you and our child to be exposed to the narrow-minded cluck-clucking of beastly provincial burghers and their wives . . .”
She freed her hands, laid one finger on his lips, and curled her hand around the back of his neck. “Roland, no. I don’t want to hear it, at the moment. I don’t want to think about it. I want you to make love to me again, and I want to fall asleep in your arms, and in the morning we’ll ride off with Philip, and everything will be fine.”
“Lilibet . . .”
“Shh.” She leaned her head into the hollow of his throat and kissed him there, savoring the salty-sweet taste, the hint of soap, the unexpected softness of his skin: tender and masculine all at once. Desire flooded her, pure and carnal. She rose on her knees, kissed his lips, and rubbed the aching tips of her breasts against him. “Please, Roland. We can decide all that tomorrow. Let’s not spoil another moment of this night. Our night.”
His hands crept up her back. “Oh, darling . . .”
“Again.” She kissed him, all over his face, tracing each beloved feature and the fine, rough texture of his midnight beard. She could not stop kissing him, could not stop reassuring herself that he was real, that he was hers. “I want to feel you inside me again. Connected with you, part of you. Please, Roland.”
“You are a part of me, darling. You always have been.” He was still stiff, still trying to resist her. Still wanting to resolve things.
“Shh. You know what I mean.” She kissed her way to his ear and drew her hands down to the curve of his buttocks, guiding him toward her. “You know what it’s like when we’re together. Don’t you feel it?”
He groaned. “God, yes.”
“Consummation. Communion. As if our souls were somehow speaking to each other. And don’t say it’s rubbish. You know it’s true.” She took his hand and placed it around her breast, his fingers dark and strong next to her pale skin. “Please. Work your magic on me again, Roland. All those lovely feelings. I want them again. I want you again.”
A low growl came from his throat, a noise of surrender. He eased her backward, into the mattress. “Here? But it’s just a dull old bed. For married couples, you said.”
“Oh, well. We’ll make do. Since there’s no lake nearby.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of him, trailing his lips down her throat to her bosom.
“The stables aren’t far.”
“Too late.” She wove her hands through his hair. “I want you now.”
He made love to her with painstaking care, until she was nothing but sensation, made of light and air and Roland’s body pulsing with release above hers. Memorize this, she thought. Remember it. Whatever the future held, whatever might come tomorrow, in this eternal instant they existed as a united whole, before God. This act had occurred, a solid physical fact, and no one could change it. No one could erase it.
Not even Somerton.
He remained inside her for long minutes afterward, remained joined with her, the silence wrapping about them like a benediction.
When at last he leaned over her to blow out the candle, she noticed the glint of light on the fine hair of his forearm in the instant before the darkness swallowed him up. She remembered, later, thinking how strong his arm looked, how invulnerable, how fully capable of protecting her.
NINETEEN
Roland awoke abruptly: one instant buried inside a cocoon of sleep, and the next bolt-upright in his bed, every nerve alive, his heart striking a staccato beat against his breastbone.
Outside the window, a gray yellow dawn crept over the crest of the mountains. Five o’clock, at the latest. He swept the room with his eyes, catching every detail, finding nothing awry.
His gaze dropped to the empty hollow in the mattress beside him.
She was gone.
Gone back to her room, of course. Gone back to Philip, before the boy woke and missed her. Packing her clothes, no doubt. Readying herself for the journey.
He sprang from the bed. A vague nervous dread rattled in his head, sending shots of energy into his blood, into his muscles and limbs. He should have packed up the night be-fore, while she was sleeping. He’d meant to, but his body had been so heavy with languor, so muzzy with bliss at the feel of her body in his arms, he’d sunk under the weight of it.
Now dawn had arrived; time ticked away. He’d dress and pack, then go to Lilibet’s room to gather her and Philip. Leave some note in the kitchens, perhaps, so the others wouldn’t worry.
He reached for his trousers and drew them upward in swift tugs. His limbs protested the movement. Hardly surprising, after such a night. Passionate Lilibet, all her restraints fallen away, all her beauty bare and breathtaking in his arms. The way she’d arched her back and cried out her climax; the way she’d curled her body into his, afterward, entangling their fingers, while her breathing drifted off into regularity.
He shut his mind to the memories, to everything but the list of actions before him. Love and passion and pleasure belonged to the moonlight. Cold, sharp reason: That was all he
needed this morning.
His hand closed around his shirt and lifted it from the back of the chair. A button was missing from the collar, after its hasty removal on the lakeshore last night. He stared at the dangling thread, at the wilting linen, attempting to trace in his mind the source of the anxiety sunk into his bones.
With an oath he strode to the door and whipped it open.
His long legs shifted into a jog: down the corridors, around the corners, past the rough stone walls, the floor cold and hard beneath his bare feet. Just a quick look. Just to reassure himself that she was in her room, readying herself and Philip for departure. Just to still the unnatural fear hammering through his body.
He turned the last corner and found her door. The thick wood sat in place, silent and immutable. He raised his fist to knock, and then reached for the doorknob. If Philip were still asleep, he didn’t want to wake him. The boy would need all his strength for the journey ahead.
The door swung open easily. In the split second before Roland peered around the edge, he heard a soft noise quaver through the air, directly into his thrumming heart. A choked keening sound, almost like . . .
A sob.
“Lilibet?” he whispered.
But Lilibet wasn’t there, and neither was Philip. Francesca sat on the narrow bed, her headscarf a startling white against her black hair, with her face pressed into her hands. She looked up as he lurched through the doorway.
“Signore . . .” Her voice quavered. “Oh, signore!”
“Francesca, what . . .”
She shot up from the bed and flung herself in his arms. “Perdonami, signore! Oh, signore!”
“What is it? My God! Where are they?” Roland grasped her shoulders, set her away, and stared desperately into her weeping face. “Tell me, by God! Where are they?”
“The man, he come last night, middle of night. He take the boy! Oh, signore! I can do nothing! He is big man, angry. I run to find the signora. I know she is . . . she is . . .”
“With me.”
“Yes! I come in, I wake her, I tell her.”
“Good God!” He raked his hand through his hair, half-mad. “Good God! And you didn’t wake me? Good God!”
“The signora say no. The signora, she follow me, she get her . . . her dresses, her things.”
“Good God!”
“She tells me, stay here. Wait for Signore Penhallow. Tell him . . .” Another choking sob. “Tell him not to follow. To wait here. She return.”
“Good God! Good God! You should have told me! You should have found me!” He just stopped his hands from grabbing her shoulders again and shaking her.
The tears broke loose from her eyes. “But the signora! She say to wait! I go to you two times, three times, and stop. I . . . I . . . Morini . . . she is not here. She . . .” Francesca shook her head and fell to her knees. “Forgive, signore!”
“How long ago? How long ago did she leave?” He strode about the room, eyes stripping the walls, the chests, the wardrobe. Dresses still hung from the rail; a brush still sat on the chest of drawers. She hadn’t taken much.
“One hour ago, I think.”
He turned. “Did she walk? Did she ride?”
“I think she go to the stable. I hear voice. The horses.”
The stables. “Giacomo. I’ll find Giacomo. He’ll know, blast him!”
Roland raced from the room, toward the stairs, straight into the tall, jacketless figure of Phineas Burke as it emerged from Lady Morley’s bedroom.
“Good God! Penhallow! What is it?” Burke demanded, in a fierce whisper.
Roland clutched his shoulders. “Have you seen her?”
“Seen whom?”
“Lilibet! Lady Somerton!”
“No, I haven’t. Not since last night. What’s the matter?”
Roland flung him away and ran down the stairs, into the silent chasm of the entrance hall, through the still, lichen-crusted courtyard. The sharp stones in the driveway cut into his bare feet, but he didn’t pause, didn’t slacken his pace, not until he ducked through the stable door and called Giacomo’s name in his most thunderous voice.
“All the night, all the night, it is noise and talking and fires!” The groundskeeper emerged from some dusty corner, brushing at his trousers. “Now you, signore! No peace for Giacomo! The dawn, it is hardly here!”
“Look here, Giacomo! It’s an emergency! You must tell me . . .”
Giacomo shook his head. “I am not understanding. What is this emer . . . this thing?”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Never mind that! Lady Somerton, was she here? About an hour ago? Did she take a horse?”
Giacomo removed his hat and scratched his hair. “Lady Somerton. She is which one?”
“The beautiful one, the . . . the . . .”
“The women, they are all beautiful.” Giacomo scowled, as if the general attractiveness of the visiting Englishwomen were something to be deplored rather than celebrated.
“Good Lord! The most beautiful one! The one . . . oh, blue eyes, dark hair. The one with the child.”
“The child, he is not with her. The father is taking him, before.”
“Blast it all! I know that! But the mother! Did she take a bloody horse?”
Giacomo looked puzzled. “No. The horse, he is not bloody. Why the signora take a horse that . . .”
“I don’t mean blood! I mean, did she take a horse at all?”
The Italian rolled his eyes. “Yes, of course she take a horse. You are thinking she walk? She take the horse of the duke, the best horse. She put on the saddle, she ride him away at a . . . at . . .” He moved his fingers on his opposite palm, mimicking a horse.
“At a gallop! Oh God!” Roland pressed his fists into his head. That damned horse of Wallingford’s, fast and spirited. Images filled his brain, lurid images of Lilibet falling off, of the horse throwing a shoe or stumbling on a rock, Lilibet launching over its head. “And Philip? The boy? The man who took him, what did he say? Was he riding or driving?”
Giacomo shrugged. “He is saying nothing. He drive in a carriage, a fast carriage. I hear the noises, I go outside, I see them in the moonlight.”
“Was he hurting the boy? Tell me, Giacomo! Was Philip all right?”
Another shrug. “I cannot see. There is no screaming, no . . . no fighting.”
A deep gust of relief shook Roland’s chest, the first in some time. At least Philip had gone willingly and hadn’t tried to struggle. At least Somerton hadn’t hurt him or taken him by force.
The panic in his brain was settling now. He had the facts: Somerton in a fast carriage with Philip, Lilibet following on horseback. Headed where? Florence, he guessed. That was where Somerton was staying. Easy connections to Milan, eventually to London. Somerton was only an hour or two ahead of him. He could catch them.
He braced his hands on his hips. “Look, Giacomo. Listen carefully. I’ve got to go inside, to pack a few things, and then go after them. I’ll need a horse saddled, the fastest we’ve got, and . . .”
“Oh no. No, no, signore.” Giacomo’s head swung back and forth in emphatic fashion. “I am not saddling the horses. I am grounds keeper.” He separated the words, as if to emphasize their meaning.
“Then tell the stable hands! I don’t bloody care!”
“Signore, it is a very long night. There is the fire in the carriage house, there is . . .”
“Fire? What the devil?”
Giacomo waved his hand in the direction of the valley. “The place, the work place of the Signore Burke. Is a fire.”
Roland started. “A fire? When? But I saw him a moment ago . . .”
“Is out now. But then there is the father, making all the noise. And then the signora, with the horse.” Giacomo placed his hand atop his heart. “Is a
very long night.”
Roland drew in a steadying breath. “Yes. I daresay it’s been a long night. Rather a long night for me as well. But regardless, old man, you’d better listen up. Because when I emerge from that castle in approximately twelve minutes, I want a horse saddled and waiting for me, right where you’re standing now. I don’t care how tired you are. I don’t particularly care who does it. But I want it done.” Roland leaned closer and lowered his voice to a menacing purr, suitable for threats of all kinds. “Is that clear, Giacomo, my friend?”
The groundskeeper’s eyes narrowed into petulant slits. “Is clear.”
Roland wheeled about and plunged through the doorway, into the brightening stableyard.
“Signore Penhallow?”
He turned back. “Yes, Giacomo?”
The groundskeeper nodded to Roland’s naked chest. “Is better if you are wearing the shirt.”
* * *
She’d forgotten her gloves, and the reins cut into her palms as she drove Wallingford’s horse along the hard-packed road toward Florence.
She didn’t notice.
The sun rose fully above the mountains at her back, casting long shadows across the ground before her, warming the clothes against her skin, but her only response was to urge the horse faster as the road became visible.
The duke’s saddle chafed at the tender skin between her legs, and she could only think, Damn Somerton, damn him to hell, because while she’d known this would happen, had known he would eventually track them down, she’d never imagined he’d choose to strike in the hours after she’d engaged in repeated acts of carnal union with her vigorous and well-endowed lover.
Bastard.
She could only pray that she wasn’t harming the baby, that the tiny precious life would remain tucked inside her, safe and well cushioned from the jolting ride.
