by Kruger, Mary
They were an agreeable pair of rogues, these two, done up with butternut staining their skin and poorly made black wigs tossed upon the table, disclosing their real hair color of sandy brown or fading blond. Acting hadn’t paid, they’d explained, passing around a bottle of port with a freeness no true Muslim would ever have shown. Each of them having a flair for accents, and people being so easily fooled, they’d decided to pass themselves off as travelers from far-off lands, selling trinkets for exorbitant sums. Miller? Oh, yes, they remembered him. He’d taken one look at their stock of brass and glass and sent them packing. Most people weren’t so knowledgeable, though. Paid well, it did, to be a foreigner. They were content, and their wives, back in London, were glad to see both their money and their backsides when they left. For themselves there were always women fascinated with men from strange lands, with their exotic ways of making love. Oh, and hadn’t Woodley run into a spot of bother last year? How had that turned out?
Simon, draining the last of his port, had managed to smile and imply that his arrest and subsequent trial had been mere trifles. He had left the pair with mutual expressions of friendship and congeniality, and only when he was retracing his steps to Canterbury did it hit him. Two days gone, and he’d not learned anymore about Miller’s death. Time was running short.
Now he was back, with little to show for his effort. It was looking more and more as if he wouldn’t be able to clear his name, which meant that he’d best start thinking of how to leave the country. Not with Blythe, though that thought made him stop dead on the stairs, feeling as if a fist had been driven into his stomach. If he left the country, he would never see Blythe again. Aye, and why should that matter? They were chance-met companions, with only circumstance to keep them together. He’d known that from the beginning. Once this adventure ended, no matter how it ended, they would each go their separate ways. It was the best thing. If that were so, though, why did it feel so wrong?
There was light glowing under the door of Blythe’s chamber. So she was not yet abed. He hesitated, hand on the door handle, and then went in. She was sitting across the room, near the candle, stitching some article of clothing. At sight of her, something settled into place within him. He was home.
Blythe looked up from the shift she was mending. Simon was back. She’d heard his voice belowstairs; followed in her mind his every step; bit her lips as he hesitated on the landing. Yet she hoped that her face was calm, her manner composed. It was the hardest bit of acting she’d ever done. “You’re back,” she said, taking another stitch.
“Aye.” Simon sprawled on a chair. “And that’s a poor greeting.”
Was she supposed to jump up and run to him? Oh, no. She would no longer expose herself in such a way. She had been open with him, honest, about her feelings and her life, and all she had received in return were secrets. It hurt. “Did you have any luck?”
Simon was frowning as he sat back, arms crossed on his chest. “None. Oh, I found our foreign gentlemen, but they weren’t what they seemed,” he said, and went on to relate to her a tale in which wine and the theater held at least as much importance as Miller’s death. “So I fear they had nothing to do with it,” he concluded.
“Mm. Neither, I believe, did Miller’s widow.”
“No?”
“No. She was visiting family in the country when he died.”
“But she walked in—”
“She had just returned.” One more stitch, and then she knotted the thread and bit it off. “And there are people who can testify.”
“Damn.” He leaned back again, frown deepening. “How did you find that out?”
Blythe picked up her mobcap, examined it for signs of damage, and then put it down. Her mending was done. There was nothing more she could use as a shield between her and Simon. “I followed her,” she said, calmly.
“I should have guessed.” Simon’s frown remained in place, but other than that he seemed not to react. She could tell, thought, from the stiffening of his shoulders, from the look in his eyes, that he was angry. An actor he might be, but she was beginning to learn what was artifice, and what real. “Bloody hell, Blythe, that was dangerous.”
“Why?” She faced him calmly, hands folded, and wondered if he, too, could tell she was acting. “There was little chance she’d know me. We had to find out about her, Simon.”
“Not with the chance of being found out. I don’t want to land in prison again.”
“I was the one taking the chance,” she retorted. “Mayhaps what I learned isn’t helpful, but there’s no need for you to cut up at me.”
“Bloody hell,” he said again, and rose, stalking to the window. “I don’t want you in prison, either, Blythe.”
“I’m quite safe,” she said, almost, but not quite, soothed by his concern. For there was the small matter of all she didn’t know about him, all he had held back from her. “The woman I spoke with is Mrs. Selley’s maid. She is a very—forceful—person.” Blythe contemplated her hands. “She told me something interesting.”
Simon didn’t turn from the window. “What?”
“She told me about your son.”
For a long moment Simon didn’t move, and then he let out a long, deep breath. “Damn.”
“Would you have told me?”
He turned, an odd look on his face. “Is that what matters to you?”
“Simon, after all we’ve been through, you could have told me. And pray do not tell me it’s not my affair. You’ve made your life my affair.”
He glanced away, his mouth tucked back. “Well, it isn’t your affair, Blythe. And as it never came up—”
“Oh, of course. An unimportant thing like a child—”
“Damn it, Blythe!” he roared, goaded at last. “Don’t you understand? I’m a bastard. Do you think I want my son to bear the same shame I have?”
Her breath caught. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.”
“No,” he said bitterly, turning back to the window. “Because you’ve no idea what it’s like.”
“No idea?” she blazed, goaded herself. “No idea what ‘tis like to wonder about your parents, whether they wanted you or you were an inconvenience? No idea how hard it is to be without a family, never knowing where you belong or to whom? Oh, yes, Simon, I know it all well. Someone had to give me a home. Someone had to remind me all my life that I was a mistake my parents made. No, no one called me bastard. But they might as well have.” She leaned her head back, weary from the outburst and the weight of emotions she hadn’t even known she felt. “They made me feel that way.”
“I’m sorry,” Simon said, quietly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No?”
“No. I meant...”
“What?” she prompted, when he didn’t go on.
“To protect myself.” His smile was sheepish. “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
“Because you have a child?”
“No. Because I didn’t marry my child’s mother.”
Blythe leaned forward, chin resting on her fist. “Yet you borrowed money to support him.”
“Bloody hell! Who told you that?”
“Nancy. Mrs. Selley’s maid. Was that the money you owed Miler when he died?”
“Yes. I—yes.” He shrugged and dropped into the chair again. “I was in the devil of a coil, Blythe. I’d always been careful, you know—”
“Careful?”
His face reddened. “Yes, well, careful not to have children.”
“Oh.” Blythe could feel her cheeks going warm as well, but she didn’t look away. “Now I understand.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Tell me what happened, Simon. I need to know, and I think you need to tell me.”
He looked startled at that. “It’s not something I can easily discuss, Blythe.”
“I know.” Sharing himself with her was hard for him; that she had finally learned, though she didn’t know the reason for it. “How old is he?”
Simon t
ook a deep breath and let it out again. “Not quite a year,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I’ve never seen him.”
“What?”
“I’ve never seen him.” He turned away, and she could see through his shirt that his back muscles were knotted and bunched. “Like my father, who, I’m told, never saw me. A proud Woodley tradition.”
“Simon—”
“It’s not entirely my fault,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And I didn’t abandon him by choice. But, nevertheless, I’ve never seen him.”
“That must hurt,” she said, quietly.
Simon’s hands gripped the windowsill. “‘Tis better for him. She’s married, you see.”
“Oh, Simon—”
“She wasn’t when I knew her, if that is what you’re thinking.”
“No, it isn’t at all, Simon.”
“She was a strolling player. Like me. You know what life on the road is like, Blythe. We became close. And—well, things happened. Bloody hell!” He pounded the sill with his clenched fist. “All the time I was careful, and that one time—I offered to marry her. I don’t want you think I’d’ve abandoned her.”
“I don’t think that.”
“And I knew she’d need money, or rather, that I would. My thinking was muddled. ‘Twas why I went to Miller. To borrow money to set up a home. I would have stayed with her, Blythe. We would have made a family.”
“I believe you, Simon.”
“And so I offered her marriage.”
“And?”
“She laughed in my face.”
“What? Why, the nerve of her—”
“She’d found herself a protector, she said, someone else who could give her a real home, a settled home, not a strolling player with no past and no future. She was tired of the stage and wanted to settle down. And so she married him, her protector. He is a solicitor and does well, so I understand. And, to this day, he believes the child is his.” He paused. “He may well be.”
Blythe rose and went to him, laying her hands on his shoulders. Of all the things he had told her, this last must be the most painful. “I’m sorry,” she said, resting her face against his back. “So sorry.”
“And yet you stay.”
“Yes, why shouldn’t I?”
He turned his head, and she could see that his face was twisted into something very like a sneer. For himself, though, not for her. “You know the worst of me now, Blythe. That I’m not a father to my child.”
And yet, he had been accused of killing a man. Oddly enough, that didn’t matter so much anymore. He was a good man, a caring man, in spite of the way they had met, in spite of the crime of which he stood accused. “Do you love him?”
Simon’s muscles under her cheek tightened. “Aye,” he said after a moment. “I do.”
“And do you think he’s happy?”
“Lord, I hope so!” He paused. “I’ve heard he is.”
“Then you’ve done what you can for him. He has parents, Simon”—she felt him wince—“and a settled home. You did your best for him.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Try,” she said, and, going up on tiptoe, pressed a light, nipping kiss to the back of his neck.
He went very still. So did she, aware suddenly of the warmth between them, and of a new tension that had little to do with the past, and everything to do with now. “If you don’t move, Blythe, I fear I’ll take you to bed.”
Heat surged through her, and she kissed his neck again, just a bit harder. “Why is it you never carry through on your threats?”
With one swift motion he spun about, first knocking her off-balance, and then dragging her close to him. He was hard, hot, male, and his every curve and ridge was impressed upon her body. “Why,” he said, voice rough but his eyes alight, “do you keep putting yourself into danger?”
She hooked her arm about his neck, undaunted by his fierceness. “Because you always rescue me.”
“Blythe.” He crushed her to him. “Not this time. Don’t you see? I’ve no future, no life to give a family, and if there’s a babe—”
“There won’t be.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m a doctor’s daughter, Simon.” She pulled back to see his face. “Is this what’s been bothering you?”
“Of course it has. I’ll not bring another bastard into the world. Not a child of mine.”
“The timing is wrong, Simon.” She smiled at the confusion in his eyes, pressed her finger against his lips. “Trust me in this.”
His mouth curled around her finger, drew it in, tugged on it, making her breath catch. “Princess, I trust you with my life,” he said, huskily.
“And you with mine.”
He looked down at her for a long moment, and then, without a word, scooped her up into his arms, holding her high against his chest. Blythe burrowed her head against his shoulder. There would be no going back this time. They both knew it, as he carried her across the room. By the side of the high, narrow bed, piled with darned quilts, he let her down, holding her so that she slid against him. There was no doubt what he wanted. What she wanted, as well, though she knew the signs were more subtle. And motivated differently, perhaps. She loved him. Oh, she loved him, though he could never give her the home, the family she needed so much. But perhaps she had a chance. She would love him as he had never been loved. It might be enough.
Simon’s mouth came down on hers, hot, heavy, seeking, and she gave herself up to him. His unshaven cheek rasped against her neck, and she arched her head to allow him access. He groaned when her hand wandered over his chest, but he held her there when she would have pulled back. The taut muscles of his shoulders, his strong arms, his undeniable desire for her—all became familiar, dear, in that long, hard embrace. When Simon at last let her up for air, his own breath coming in gasps, Blythe clung to him, boneless, liquid, her body melted and molded against his. If he were to let her go she would surely fall.
He did release her, but only for a moment, and only to tear off his shirt. “Explore your kingdom, princess,” he murmured, raising her hand to his chest. She let her fingers roam at will, shivering at the crisp curls of hair; fascinated by his brown nipples. She wondered if his were as sensitive as her were at the moment, and if he would ever touch her—ah. Her head fell back as he fondled her breast, thoroughly, intimately, his thumb rubbing again and again over her nipple. A feeling too intense to be merely pleasure stabbed through her, and she clutched at him, feeling again his muscles bunch in response. Why, she could affect him, too, just as he did her. Delighted to know that, she gave him a little push, and to her surprise he fell back onto the bed, making her laugh.
“What the—if you think you’re getting away with that, you’re wrong,” he said. He caught her about the waist, pulling her down atop him, her legs splayed to either side and her skirts kilted about her waist. Laughter left her at the feeling of that most masculine part of him pressed against her so intimately, and her eyes grew round. “Ah. Much better.”
“Simon—”
“Shh.” He was concentrating on the laces of her bodice. “Not enough light in here to see what I’m doing—hell, is that a knot?”
“Where?”
“Here.”
She fumbled at the laces and found that he had indeed tangled them together. “Just a minute—”
“I’d rather not wait that long,” he said, and with a quick twist of his hips flipped her over, in charge again. “If I had a knife—”
“Simon Woodley, you’ve done enough damage to my clothes—there, it’s undone.”
“And about time.” His fingers, so frantic a moment earlier, now leisurely resumed their task, plucking at the laces, pausing to explore the interesting distractions of her nipples, and then finally, finally, pulling her bodice free. After that, he made short work of her shift; she was twisted and raised and set down again, his body looming above her, the air cool on her naked breasts. She was d
efenseless before him, and she didn’t care. She reached for him as he reached for her, bringing his face down to hers, their mouths meeting just as his hands found her breasts again. She clutched at him against the almost intolerably pleasant sensations his knowing, supple fingers awoke. No words of love from him, no promises, but then, she hadn’t expected any. And if she were at last releasing the dream she’d held to for so long, well, that was her choice. She would deal with the consequences later.
She was soft and warm in his arms, and giving, so giving, offering him her body with such unselfish generosity that Simon couldn’t help but respond. It had never been quite like this before. Before he’d always held something of himself back. Not this time, though. As he learned through the touch of fingers and tongue what pleased her, what made her respond, his own need grew stronger. He wanted her with an urgency that stunned him, so rare was it, and yet he didn’t want to hurry it. He wanted this evening, this moment, to last, to savor her soft skin and the wine dark taste of her lips, the warmth and the giving that were so very much a part of her. As she gave to him, he wanted to give to her.
Blythe shifted under him restlessly as he toyed with her nipple. “Easy, princess, easy,” he murmured, lowering his head.
“Simon.” Her fingers tunneled into his hair as his mouth found her breast at last, at last. “Please—”
“What, princess?” He raised his head, his eyes gleaming. “What is it?”
“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I just know when you touch me like that, I want—I need—”
“Shh.” He drew her against his chest and rocked her, as if for comfort. “We’ve waited a long time for this, princess.” He felt her nod against his shoulder. “We needn’t rush.”
No need? When her blood ran hot and pulsing in her veins? Oh, easy for him to say no need, though the hardness of him against her belied that. This was heaven, and it was torture. The feelings rushing through her were like nothing she’d ever felt, not even that night in the forest, when he had first shown her what pleasure could be. Then he had held himself apart; now he was with her, his hands urgent, compelling, drawing from her feelings she had not known she could feel. She wanted them never to end, and at the same time, she wanted to be herself again, safe and sane and not at the mercy of her desires. And he—oh, heavens, he was kissing her breast again, drawing her nipple into his mouth. Someone cried out, and she realized dimly that it was she. Her hands explored restlessly over him, his neck, his shoulders, his back, learning him in a way she’d never expected. This was adventure, she thought, and with that the fear left her. Adventure wasn’t comfortable, it wasn’t something she could control, but it gave her more than safety and sanity ever could. It was terror and excitement and joy, the sheer joy of being alive.
