by Jane Ashford
“I hadn’t thought of selling.”
“You don’t visit or pay the least heed to the place.”
“I haven’t,” he acknowledged.
“Cash is always useful,” she added diffidently.
There was no denying that. He could use the money—though he didn’t expect it would be any great sum—to improve his Somerset acres. But his stepfather had left him this place. It was the only legacy he would ever have of the man he should have revered as a father. The only sign of respect he could show now was to value the gift. And on this visit he had found himself drawn to the wild landscape and the silences. “I don’t think I want to let the place go.”
Lydia looked surprised, and predictably displeased. “Why not?”
“I didn’t properly appreciate it before. I want to get out into this country, explore.”
“You could do that on any visit to Wales. There is no need to burden yourself with an estate.”
“True. But as I said, I am beginning to like the place.”
“I see.”
“If I ever should decide to sell…”
“You will think of us, I hope.” Her tone was brusque, and she moved toward the door as if impatient to end this conversation. Lydia strode out to her horse. She waved aside Richard’s help and mounted at the block. She looked down at him for a moment before departing. “You’re quite sure?”
He nodded.
Lydia flicked her horse with the riding crop and set off down the hill at a brisk pace. Watching her figure grow smaller with distance, Richard wondered at the visit. She had made rather a long ride to ask a question she could have put to him at any time during their journey. But she had wanted him to see Morne. She had thought he would be repelled at the dilapidation.
And so he would have been, not long ago. Lydia still thought of him as Lord Warrington, pink of the ton and perpetual annoyance. He wondered how long it would take for her to see that man was gone.
Richard stretched and breathed in the clear cool air. He decided to go out riding himself. The slant of light across the crags was golden and alluring.
* * *
Emily rode up the rough lane toward the low, steep-roofed house that she was almost certain must be Morne. This place matched the description she had been given in all particulars. She had meant to arrive in early afternoon, but the innkeeper’s directions had failed her more than once today, and she had been thoroughly lost for more than an hour. She looked more closely, and didn’t see any lights in the windows. What if Richard wasn’t home?
Weariness weighed her down. There had been the hurried packing and the long jolting journey by coach. Settling on an inn had been the usual chaotic process, with her father ranging up and down stairs criticizing the accommodations. Then she had gone to Lydia Farrell’s house, only to be told by a servant that Richard was not there. At least she had avoided encountering Lydia and Richard’s mother, she thought as she reached the small yard before the house and found the mounting block.
There were no lights. Evening was blurring the edges of things, and she couldn’t see a place to stable her horse. It was growing cool here in the mountains.
Emily rubbed her forehead. No doubt her father had discovered her absence by this time and was wreaking havoc in the village. She had no idea how to find her way back in the dark.
With a sigh, she pulled the long skirts of her riding habit over her arm and went to the front door. As she expected, there was no answer to her knock. She waited a moment, then knocked again. The only response was the call of an owl. Emily tried the latch. The door opened on a small entryway. “Lord Warrington?” she called.
There was no reply. But she did see a glimmer of light through a doorway at the back. Following it, she came into the kitchen, where the embers of a fire glowed and there were signs of habitation. Pulling off her gloves, Emily put logs on the fire and lit an oil lamp, filling the room with warm golden light.
She unpinned her hat and laid it on the table beside her gloves. She was extremely hungry, having had nothing since the bread and cheese she took from the inn this morning. Searching the pantry, she found half a ham, some dried apples, a loaf of bread, and a crock of pickles. A jug of cider sat on the table. Emily put the apples in a pan of water on the hearth to soften and proceeded to make a meal with the rest. She was just thinking that it was too bad there was no sugar or cinnamon to put in with the apples when she heard sounds outside.
A male voice cursed as something fell with a clatter. A horse snorted. She had to find somewhere to put her horse, Emily thought, starting up guiltily. She would be hungry, too.
Old hinges creaked, and then there was the sound of footsteps behind the house. Somehow, they sounded angry. The back door burst open. Richard stood silhouetted in it, lamplight gilding his face and figure. He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Emily took a step forward. “There is something I must tell you.”
Richard scowled. “I took the wrong trail coming back and was nearly lost in the mountains overnight. I’m tired. I’m hungry. My horse needs attention. You’ll have to wait.”
Years of dealing with her father had taught Emily that this wasn’t the time for argument. Instead, when Richard lit a lantern and went back outside, she fetched her horse and led it around to the shed where he was tending his own mount. She was struggling to pull off the saddle when two strong arms suddenly enveloped her and lifted it from her hands, “Go in,” he said roughly. “I’ll be there directly.”
Once again, she obeyed. In the kitchen, she cut ham and bread and poured a mug of cider. Checking the apples, she found them palatable and set them out in a bowl. Life with her father had also taught her that gentlemen listened much better when their stomachs were full.
Dinner was a silent affair. Emily had a bit of apple and bided her time. She could almost feel Richard’s irritation fading with the food and the firelight. He even began to show that expression she had seen so often on her father’s face—a mixture of sheepishness and stubbornness that meant he was sorry but wasn’t going to apologize.
“What are you doing here?” he said finally.
“I came to warn you.”
Richard frowned.
“Sarah came to me after you had left London and said those ruffians had gone to Wales.”
His frown deepened.
“You aren’t safe here,” she insisted.
“You came all the way from London to tell me this?”
“I didn’t want them to catch you unaware.”
“You didn’t come alone?”
“With my parents. Have you understood what I…?”
“Where are they?” He looked around the kitchen as if someone might be hidden in the room.
“The killers?”
“Your parents.”
“Oh. In the village, at an inn.”
“Even they would not allow you to go out alone after dark.”
“It wasn’t dark when I left. I got lost. What do you mean, ‘even they’?”
Richard stood. “I’ll take you back there.”
“Why aren’t you listening to me?”
“You’ve told me nothing of consequence. Come along.”
“Sarah is not a fool, and she thought it important.”
“And did she tell you to come haring down here rather than sending a message?” Richard came to stand over her. “If there is danger here, all you have managed to do is put yourself in the middle of it. And then you ride out alone, lose yourself, generally behave like an idiot.”
He was really angry, Emily saw. His hazel eyes glittered with it. Mustering all her dignity, she stood. He loomed over her, very large, and very close.
“You had promised not to go wandering about alone,” he accused.
“That was in London
.”
“It applied to everywhere!”
“I was only thinking of warning you. I…I forgot.”
Richard grasped her upper arms, his fingers digging into her flesh. He shook her slightly. “Forgot?”
“The attacks in London had stopped.”
“So you came down here where you think they will begin again.”
“You were here!” The words came out with such emotion that Emily herself was surprised. They seemed to stun Richard. He stared at her. She could hear him breathing. His grip on her arms tightened. And then he pulled her closer and kissed her, hard.
Emily was too shocked to react for a moment. He had been shouting at her, and now suddenly his lips were crushing hers. She pulled back. But even as she thought to struggle, the kiss changed. It grew softer. His mouth moved on hers, coaxing, instructing. The demand was still there, but it beguiled and taunted her, sought to lure her into matching it.
Richard’s hands slid down to her waist. He pulled her against him, every hard line of his body joining in the kiss somehow, which went on and on overwhelming her senses. Emily found her hands slipping under his coat and along the fine fabric of his shirt over his ribs. She gave herself up to the strength of his embrace, melting into the contours of his body so naturally it amazed her. She hadn’t understood that a kiss could be so wildly intoxicating.
She felt his heart pounding to match her own. Her fingertips explored the muscles of his back, her lips parted under his coaxing and her senses swam.
Richard raised his head and looked down at her. He blinked as if dazed, then grimaced. “Oh God.”
She wanted him to kiss her again, Emily realized. She pressed closer, and he groaned. “We are engaged,” she murmured.
He gave a little laugh. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, bent to capture her lips again. Emily gave herself up wholeheartedly to the kiss, following where he led. His mouth was warm and sure. His hands evoked promises of delight she had never dreamed of. She felt weak with yearning and charged with energy at the same time. He had stirred a sense of sweet urgency that felt likely to carry her completely away.
Richard ripped them apart. “No,” he said.
Emily’s hands were reaching for him. She pulled them back.
“This won’t…do.” He was breathing hard.
So was she, Emily noticed. Her knees were trembling, too.
“I have to get you out of here.”
Without conscious thought, Emily took a step toward him. Her feet tangled in the long skirts of her riding habit, and she stumbled. Richard caught her, off balance, and they both went down in a flurry of broadcloth.
She landed on top of him, clinging. And then he was kissing her again, crushing her to him as if afraid she would escape. She surrendered to his lips gladly, shifting so that her knees rested on the floor to either side so that she could press closer. When she felt his hands through the cloth running up her thighs, she shivered with pleasure.
But they closed on her waist to lift her away from him. He thrust her upright, then stood himself, moving around the kitchen table so that it separated them. “I’m going to saddle the horses.”
“We’ll never find the way back to the inn in the dark,” she pointed out breathlessly.
“Yes, we will.” He moved abruptly.
In the same instant the window behind him shattered and a bullet whined between them to explode in the plaster wall. Richard dove, catching her in his arms as he hit the floor just as the other window erupted, showering them with bits of leaded glass.
Richard started to crawl along the floor, pulling her with him. They wormed their way into the windowless hall, where he stood, yanking her upright.
There were voices outside. Emily couldn’t tell how many, though it seemed like more than two. And they seemed to come from all sides of the house.
Richard ran to the front door and dropped a wooden bar into place across it. “Not that it will keep them out,” he muttered. His face showed intense concentration, and perhaps anger, but not a trace of fear.
The hinges of the kitchen door creaked, then immediately fell silent. Richard put an arm around Emily’s waist and swept her silently down the hall and into a room at the opposite corner of the house. At a window he listened intently before pushing the casement open. Emily heard branches scrape softly as it moved.
Richard listened again, then leaned out the window. In the next instant he was pushing himself through it, his shoulders sticking briefly in the small opening. Once out, he turned and practically lifted Emily through. He pushed the casement shut and crouched beside her.
They had come out into a thicket of some kind. In the moonlight she could see that the bushes had grown into a mound, and dying branches in the center had broken off to leave a sort of vegetative cave.
Richard grasped her shoulder and pointed. Emily nodded and started to crawl in the direction indicated. She stopped briefly to hike her long skirts out of the way. Richard’s fingers encircled her ankle as she did, sending a thrill through her despite the danger. And then they were both moving on hands and knees through a dark tunnel of underbrush away from the beleaguered house.
There were occasional shouts behind them. Once, a flurry of shots made Emily falter. But the sounds gradually faded as they drew farther away. And though her knees were being lacerated and her hands torn, she didn’t consider stopping. It was obvious the killers had struck again, and there was no doubt about the outcome if they found them.
Seventeen
Crouching in a tangle of underbrush in the darkness, Richard listened for sounds of pursuit with all the intensity he had learned in the jungle. He heard a hunting owl, a whisper of breeze, the trickle of water in the gully below. He heard the rapid breathing of the woman kneeling next to him. They had been working their way steadily uphill, as fast as they could manage under the circumstances, and it had been taxing.
He listened. He didn’t hear voices, or hoofbeats. It seemed that they had eluded the attackers for now. But they had to get farther from the house before daylight, and confuse the trail.
They began to move cautiously along the slope. Emily made no protests, thought Richard; no sign of tears or the fear she must be feeling. He hadn’t been wrong about her—pluck up to the backbone, someone to count on.
He was shaken by a tide of feeling that kept him motionless. He had tried to run. He had put the width of a country between them. When he had felt the bond with her deepening in London, he had fled. It was the only honorable thing to do. Their sham engagement must be ended, his internal judge pronounced. He had to let her go before things became even more complicated.
But she had come after him, he protested silently. She had worried about him. Of course he hadn’t been able to resist. No man could have resisted that tone in her voice, the delicate glory of her hair and eyes and that delectable body.
He heard echoes of her soft murmur—they were engaged. Engaged in chasing assassins the judge replied, and nothing more, as he well knew. Taking advantage of their agreement was not the act of a gentleman, even if her response had been so warm and eager that it nearly drove him mad to remember it.
Emily stopped and waited. No doubt she was looking back at him, wondering at his stillness. Richard started after her.
He steered downward now, with a ridge between them and the house. Near the bottom, the gully grew steeper, and he signaled for Emily to stop. Worming his way forward, he came to an overhang that dropped sheer to the small stream running through the bottom. The moon was fully up now, and its gleam on the water showed him only empty countryside. There was nothing to do but risk it.
He swung over the lip of the overhang and hung by his hands briefly. When he let go, he fell only a few feet to packed sand. Emily was already looking down at him. He made a motion and held out his arms. With only a moment’s hesitation, she jumped into them.
She nodded. The moonlight frosted her hair and gave her skin a pale sheen. She looked directly back at him with a clear confidence. She was relying on him to get her out of this. She seemed to have no doubt at all that he would. That was far more daunting than simply saving himself had ever been.
She went over to the stream and Richard used a branch to sweep away their footprints as he moved after her. The water was shallow, fortunately, but lined with rocks and pebbles. They would have to wear their boots, and soak them. There was no other way to navigate such treacherous footing.
Richard prepared to step in, then noticed that Emily was holding up the trailing skirts of her riding habit with one hand. The extra cloth would hamper her damnably if they had to run. He knelt beside her and began to cut away the hem with his penknife, trimming the skirt well above her ankles. After one small sound, she turned to allow him to reach the other side.
When he finished, he rolled the cloth into a tight cylinder and shoved it into his pocket with the knife. It wouldn’t do to leave it for their pursuers to find. Then he retrieved the branch broom, which would also alert hunters, and stepped into the stream.
The water was cold seeping through his boots, but not icy. They could probably manage it for quite a while. Waiting for Emily to go ahead where he could keep an eye on her, Richard scanned the walls of the gully once more. They were visible here, and vulnerable. But he still heard nothing other than natural sounds. By daylight, he intended to be far away, leaving no track to follow.
They moved through the night, splashing as little as possible, following the meanderings of the streambed. Richard estimated that two hours had passed when the gully began to narrow and the sound of falling water came to his ears. A little way ahead, the stream fell about ten feet to a pool before continuing.
