Out of nowhere, a booming gunshot shook the air around him.
Crack.
Another.
Yanking up on his reins, he threw his arm out to grab Elle’s horse, but she had already jerked her mount to a stop.
His look frantic about them, he heard the sudden thunder of horses tearing through the trees to the front and right of them.
A deer darted out of the forest from the right, crossing the roadway in front of them and disappeared into the line of tress to the left. Not two minutes later a storm of hounds and five—no, six—scarlet-clad men on horses tore out of the forest on the right, rumbled across the road, and drove forth into the opposite woods.
Peculiar time of year for a hunt and not a one of them even glanced at Rune and Elle, so focused they were on the pursuit of the deer.
Rich bastards.
The asses probably released the poor deer just to hunt it.
The dust that had been kicked up from the road settled in front of them, sparks of it falling like miniature diamonds as they reflected the dappled summer sunlight streaming in amongst the treetops.
Rune looked to Elle.
Shit.
She wasn’t on her horse.
He found her almost immediately on the ground. Her back to him, she moved away from him, her feet dragging along the brush in the dip along the side of the road until she dropped to her knees.
He was off his horse in an instant, shoving past her mare to her.
He grabbed her shoulders, rounding himself to the front of her and propping her up before she fell. “You weren’t hit, were you?”
No response.
His fingers tightened on her shoulders, and Rune slowed, bending to look in her eyes.
They were open. Open and vacant just like yesterday.
He shook her. “Lady Raplan—no. Stay right here.” He shook her again.
Nothing.
Her body dropped, her backside landing on her heels.
Rune sank to his knees, keeping his right hand on her shoulder, and he grabbed her face, his thumb under her chin and his fingers pressing into her cheek. “Elle—stay here. Get back here right now. It was just a shot—just a hunting party. Nothing more. Some wild men after a deer. That was all. Elle.”
No response.
His thumb moved up along the other side of her face and he shook her head. “Elle. Elle. Get back here. Stay with me—you’re safe—safe. I’m right here. Elle.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes clamping closed for the longest of seconds.
He froze, his breath held.
Slowly, her right hand rose, stuttering in its movement, almost dropping back to her side, but then it lifted, her hand twitching until it found his chest in front of her. Her palm flattened, her fingers spreading wide over the lapel of his coat.
Her eyes fluttered open. Focused. Confused, but focused.
Her brow furrowed as she searched his face. “Wha—”
The word cut off as she looked around. Her gaze darted back to him, her dark blue eyes wide. “What?”
Rune exhaled his held breath. “A hunting party crossed in front of us. Shots were fired.”
As afraid as he was that she would leave the present again—that his fingers gripping her cheeks were the only things keeping her focused—he let his left hand drop from her face.
But he held his clamp on her shoulder. There was still a sway in her torso he didn’t care for.
“You are back?”
She looked around, the confusion in her brow dissipating, and then her gaze fixed solidly on him. “I am.” She nodded to herself. “I am.”
Her eyes closed for a long breath and then she shook her head. “I am and I’m mortified.” Her eyes opened to him. “That this should happen twice in as many days. It is rare—once or twice a year—but now twice. You must think me quite mad.”
“No. But I do want to know what the gunshot was.”
“The gunshot?”
“The one that did this to you.”
Her lips pursed and a quiver ran under his palm across her shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re feigning ignorance and I don’t care to fight through that.” His hand slipped off her shoulder and he leaned back, going to the balls of his feet as he balanced on his heels. “I don’t imagine you always reacted like this to gunshots. So tell me about the one gunshot that did this to you.”
Her chest lifted in a heavy breath and her head dipped forward, her gaze solidly on her hands that she’d clasped together on her blue skirts, her fingertips digging into the fabric. “It was the one that killed my husband. A duel. A duel over me—another man that had dared to talk to me a moment too long at a ball. I wasn’t supposed to be there that morning when they met on that field but I was. The one shot cut through the air and it almost sounded fake, like the gun didn’t have enough gunpowder or it misfired. But then my husband dropped. Sank into the tall grasses. He disappeared and I couldn’t see him and by the time I reached him…it took so long for my legs to move…the blood was everywhere. On my dress. On my fingers. My hands were stained red for days.”
She paused and Rune could only stare at her, shocked she’d so openly admitted to what had happened. Duels and death were not topics of conversation for ladies of the ton. Des had told him nothing of her past and he was suddenly wishing he’d had a few more questions for his old friend as to the type of person Elle was.
She drew a deep breath. “It is silly.”
“Silly how?”
She shrugged, her look lifting to him and directly meeting his stare. “Unrequited love. The power it can have over a person. For all that it was not a grand love match between the earl and me, he was my world. I loved him. He didn’t love me. It was silly that he ended up dying because of me. Stupid.”
Rune rubbed the scruff of whiskers along his jaw. “You say he didn’t love you, but yet he died for you?”
A sad half smile lifted her cheek. “It would appear that way, wouldn’t it?”
He nodded.
“He would have liked that. Liked how that appeared.” Her shoulders lifted, her palms flopping upright on her lap. “The reality is that my husband loved his possessions—needed to keep any and all of them his and his alone. He would defend to the death what he owned. I was just another one of his possessions.” Her left hand left her lap and she tugged at the tip of a blade of grass that had turned to seed next to her thigh. “I was his property to protect and he was too proud to accept the apology that was offered to him. Stupid, stubborn man.”
She yanked on the grass, ripping it from the ground. “Stupid, stubborn me. It was my everything. The one thing I was going to do with my life—bear his children, raise the next Earl of Raplan. Take my place in the long and distinguished line of matrons of the Raplan name. Live to see my son become the earl, see my grandson born. That was how my life was supposed to be.”
Rune clasped his hands together as he stayed balanced on his heels. “Yet, I see no husband. No child.”
“No.” Her lips pulled back with a harsh chuckle. “No, you do not. My life, my purpose burnt to ash that day.” She flicked the grass seed upward. “Gone. Just like that. One crack of a pistol and it was gone. Everything.”
She looked to him. “I had one chance and it passed me by before I was even twenty. I will always be marked with the scandal of that day—not fit for a new respectable husband. Not respectable enough for children, for I would taint them as well. That was expressed to me very clearly by everyone that mattered in London. I was somebody before that day. And then I was nothing after that day.”
“So you’ve never tried to move on?”
“No. I am welcome at many balls and parties by my title alone, but a respectable life—a real life with a family—will never be mine. I had my chance. There is nothing to move on to.”
Rune stared at her. At the tilt of her chin—high—as though she were standing, defiant, in front of the pretentious matrons of the ton. Refusing to let tears fall
. Refusing to let them and the world they lived in hurt her more than they already had.
Her future had been taken by the very people that had given her that original hope for the future. They’d given her the promised land, then ripped it from her fingers.
The disdain, cold and icy, that ran up his spine every time he thought of those people twisted viciously along his back.
More vicious than usual.
Vicious because of the woman in front of him. Her own people had taken everything from her—her dreams, her future. Convinced her she wasn’t worthy of a life of any consequence.
She was so very much like him and she didn’t even understand it, for she was still so embroiled in the pageantry of it. The lives of the ton—their parties, their squabbles, their aimless wanderings.
He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the rage he felt on her behalf. He’d nursed his own hatred at the vile aristocracy for so long, he hadn’t realized he wasn’t the only one who had his life destroyed.
His lips pulled inward for a second and then he stood, holding down his hand to her. “Maybe it’s time you open your mind to pursuing the unrespectable.”
She looked up at him, her dark blue eyes shocked for a moment, then lightening, mirth running along the edges of her irises.
To his surprise, she took his hand. “I may have to consider it.”
Her fingers slid along his palm. Even through her kidskin gloves, the touch was warm and soft and sweet and everything he wasn’t. He pulled her upright, noting how light she was. Noting how the sun hit the sliver of creamy skin showing along the slope of her chest between the satin lapels of her pelisse. Noting how she stared at him with those canny blue eyes, as though he’d just opened up a brand new world of wonder to her.
She gained her feet, the front of her brushing against him, and they both froze. Too close.
Breathless, neither of them moved, their eyes locked. The exact moment he’d kiss her if she was a woman in his bedroom.
But she wasn’t and they weren’t. They were on the bloody road.
He was slipping into very dangerous territory with this one.
Dangerous territory he couldn’t afford to dip into.
He dropped her hand, turning stiffly to the horses and walking to his.
She could mount her own mare.
{ Chapter 7 }
“You need only a masonry chisel and hammer—score it in a circle around it, again and again, until it pops open like a walnut.”
Lord Lockford laughed. “A walnut, you say?”
Mirth on her lips, Elle nodded. “And I have popped open many walnuts and many geodes so I do believe I’m an expert at the process.”
“You are—”
“We need to leave, Lady Raplan.” Lord Lockford’s words were cut off by Rune stepping directly between them and grabbing her elbow, ushering her to the left to the waiting carriage.
She leaned to the right to look past Rune’s arm. “I apologize, Lord Lockford, I apparently am holding up our progress. Be sure to try the trick on that pile of geodes, but close your eyes. Slivers of rock in your eye are never pleasant.”
Lord Lockford tipped his hat to Elle. “I will try it first thing when I arrive at my estate. My sister will find me a hero if we finally crack them open. God speed.”
She waved to him. “To you as well.”
Rune stepped sideways, blocking her once more from Lord Lockford’s view.
Her look went up to him. “Really, Rune, that was incredibly rude.”
“We have a long journey today, Lady Raplan.”
His hold on her elbow tightened, close to shoving her up the step and into the carriage. With an exasperated sigh, she moved into the carriage and sat on the rear cushions, settling her skirts about her legs. Her fingers smoothed rogue lines on the muslin—her clothes were getting dreadfully wrinkled, but there was nothing for it.
Rune climbed into the carriage, slammed the door closed and sat down on the opposite cushion with his hands by his sides, his right forefinger digging against the cushion’s faded black leather. The line of his mouth had shriveled into a tight, hard thread.
Moments ago in the coaching inn, he had actually smiled at her when she descended the stairwell. It was the slightest smile, but she saw it. She’d gotten so accustomed to looking at the scowl on his face it was easy to discern the tiniest change in his demeanor.
And now his countenance had definitely changed—all the more to the worse.
What in the heavens had happened when he went to fetch the carriage?
Ignoring the glower on his face, she pointed at him. “You’re sitting inside on this leg of the journey? Two days of riding is enough for your sea legs?”
He hadn’t said much about his time at sea, just that he’d spent many years on the water and that he’d met Des and Weston during that time. Nothing she didn’t already know from the report from Jules.
“It’s been some time since I’ve been on the ship.” He didn’t look to her, his gaze fixed solidly out the window. “It’s easier to protect you if I ride in here, aside from the fact that I apparently cannot trust you on your own.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Not trust me? What is that supposed to mean?”
The carriage started, moving past the coaching inn, and she caught a glimpse of Lord Lockford moving into the building.
He refused to look at her. “Nothing.”
“If you have something to say, just say it, Rune."
His hand flickered into the air. “I know you. I know your kind.”
“You know my kind?” she bristled. He truly wasn’t going to start in again on the class of people with which she moved, was he?
“Yes.” He looked directly at her. “You flit about like a beautiful, bright little finch from bloom to bloom—party to party, man to man—never landing on one thing.”
Her head jerked back, her brow furrowing as she stared at him. “What do you know of it? What could you possibly know of me and how I conduct myself?”
“I’ve seen you. I happened to be at several of the parties you attended in the last year.”
“No—I never met you or saw you at any parties. You, I would have noticed.” Her head flew back and forth. “No. The first time I ever saw you was at Seahorn when you offered to accompany me to the Isle of Wight.”
“Look outside your tiny world, finch.” His head inclined toward her. “I said I was at the parties. You never saw me because I am very good at staying in the shadows.”
Her arms crossed over her ribcage. “I find that hard to believe.” Her forefinger flicked out and waved about his body. “You—this—it would have drawn quite a stir in certain circles.”
“Why?”
“I imagine in formal wear you couldn’t help but draw attention to yourself.”
“To which circles?”
A flush crept along her cheeks. Damn words that flew out of her mouth too easily. “To ladies that are unattached, or have the freedom to pretend they are so.”
A caustic chuckle left his lips and he shrugged, looking out the window. “Fine. I make it a point to stay in the shadows of the billiards and smoking rooms at those things.”
“Why do you even attend them if you do not wish to mingle with the guests?”
“I attend at the behest of Des or Weston. Sometimes our old captain, Lord Glenford.”
“Lord Glenford? Of course—of course that makes sense. The gala he threw to raise funds for his orphanage several months back.”
He offered one nod. “I was there.”
“And I…” Her look drifted up to the roof of the carriage as she tried to reconstruct that evening in her mind.
She was there with Lady Hewton and it was a grand event. A masked ball, so very full of people, and it had been very hard to tell the men apart. Especially the men with dark hair and she had danced, and flirted, and…
Of course.
She had snuck off with one masked gentleman into the gardens, then thought it was
the same man later in the evening, which it wasn’t. Then she’d had three glasses of strong punch too many and had flirted outrageously with Lord Jenson late into the night and in front of his seething mother, and…damn it to bloody hell.
She was a madcap finch flittering from man to man.
She cleared her throat, her look dipping to him. “It is entirely rude to judge someone based on one night of abandon.”
He met her stare for a second, his lips quirking into a frown. His eyebrows lifted and he shifted his gaze out the window without a word.
Bugger.
He was rude. But she couldn’t fault him for what he’d witnessed.
Her arms unfurled and she sighed, her gaze going to the opposite window he looked out. The last buildings of Charminster passed them and they moved into fields and grazing lands.
It was going to be a long ride.
An hour later, Rune shifted in his seat, his foot bumping into her boot.
She looked to the floor, then upward. His forefinger was methodically tapping on the cushion. Her gaze travelled to his face. He was staring at her, his copper-green eyes burrowing into her. Trying to figure her out.
She’d seen that look in plenty of men studying her. It always meant it was time to part company. She didn’t need anyone looking at her like that, hoping to scrape under the surface of what she was willing to offer.
Unfortunately, she was well and stuck with Rune in this carriage and there would be no escape.
She drew in a deep breath, holding it in her lungs. “What do you want to know?”
“Why do you think I want to know anything?”
“You wouldn’t be staring at me as you are unless you had a question.”
He shifted, leaning forward and settling his forearms on his thighs, his look not wavering from her. “Why did your husband not love you?”
Elle froze.
Why didn’t her husband love her?
Damn, if she only knew.
Rune’s voice softened slightly. “I mean no offense—I was just curious. You can be charming as was witnessed at the coaching inn with that man—”
“Lord Lockford.”
“Lord Lockford, not but an hour ago. You’re clearly intelligent and don’t appear to pander to fools. You’re beautiful. But beyond all of that, you have the admiration of Des, and his judgement of people is unfailing.”
The Soul of a Rogue (A Box of Draupnir Novel Book 3) Page 4
