Nathaniel looked away. He’d made a right fool of himself. “About that—”
She nodded. “Yes, well, you can see why I was too busy hating you to talk.”
“You hate me?” Nathaniel couldn’t believe it bothered him, but it did.
“Oh, not anymore! After all, none of this is your fault, is it?”
“It isn’t your fault, either,” he said.
“Well—” Abruptly she turned from him and pushed the mare into a fast trot. “Aren’t we making wonderful time today?” she called back over her shoulder.
Nathaniel knew guilt when he saw it. Blunt caught up easily at a nudge from Nathaniel’s heels. “Willa? What really happened that evening in the lane?”
She edged away, still chattering. “Such good weather for traveling—”
Nathaniel reached for the mare’s rein and pulled both horses to a stop. “I’d like for you to stand still and answer my question this time.”
“Oh, I’d really rather not.”
“Willa!”
“Don’t puff up at me. I am not afraid of cobras.”
Cobras? Nathaniel blinked. “Wh—what? Why would you say something like that?”
Willa pursed her lips. “You’ll think me odd.”
Nathaniel put one hand over his heart. “I promise, my opinion of you will not change.”
She hesitated, looking askance at his phrasing. Then she shrugged. “Oh, very well. It is merely a game I play. People can be difficult to understand sometimes. I find it easier to predict how they will behave if I decipher what sort of wild creature they resemble. For instance, Moira could be compared to a brown bear.”
Since Nathaniel had experienced Moira’s burly protectiveness firsthand, it seemed like a good match to him. A game? Could this truly be all there was to her deadly accuracy? “So you find me snakelike?” If the matter turned out to be a silly jest, he might take the time to be insulted.
“Oh, don’t take offense! If you understood snakes, you’d like them very much, I’m sure.”
“But Willa,” he said quietly. “Why a cobra?”
“Oh, a number of reasons!” She began counting on her fingers. “Cobras are really quite shy, and don’t like to be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they put on a great show of ferocity, raising their hoods and weaving about, but it’s really mostly show. They only strike when they must.” She smiled hesitantly at him. “Like you.”
“I’m not poisonous,” Nathaniel reminded her, although a voice inside reminded him that his disgrace might very well be contagious.
She shrugged. “I did not say it was a perfect concept.”
“I have never ‘puffed up’ at you—until now, anyway.” Nathaniel wasn’t too happy about her astuteness. Who would have thought a curvaceous country miss could have such a keen mind? If that was truly all there was to this.
Willa sighed. “‘Tis only a game,” she said slowly, as if to a simpleton.
Nathaniel scowled. “So you have decided that I am a cobra. What difference does that make?”
“No, not just any cobra. A king cobra. Naja hannah. I have a book that describes them very well. They live in India. They are very large and handsome, but are the shyest of them all. They will retreat from a child.”
Lovely. Now I’m a cowardly snake. “Enough. You were going to explain how I ended up on the side of the lane, unconscious.”
“I’d rather talk about snakes.”
“Willa.”
She huffed. “Oh, very well. It is commonly considered a fact, not only in Derryton and Edgeton but in all our surrounding farms and communities, that I am jinxed.”
Hell. And here he’d thought her sophisticated. She was just a superstitious country miss, after all. “You don’t believe in such nonsense, do you?”
“I wish it were nonsense. I wish it were some silly story, but most of all I wish it were about someone else.”
Nathaniel rubbed the back of his neck. “So you believe you are jinxed?”
“Some would say I am the jinx.”
Ha. More like the “minx.” “Who would say that?”
She ticked off one finger. “Wesley Moss, for example.”
Nathaniel dug deep for patience. “Willa, would you kindly just tell me everything, so I don’t have to pull it from you word by word. You believe you have bad luck?”
“Oh no, I have marvelous luck. I am always the first one to find berries in the spring, and my cakes never fall. It is only my suitors.”
“Such as this Wesley Moss?”
“Yes, poor Wesley was one of my more famous incidents. Of course, that may be because he actually went so far as to kiss me. Or to try to.”
“So what happened to him? Did this terrible jinx smite him dead?” Nathaniel smirked.
Willa shook her head quite seriously. “No, thank goodness, although it was close. But he regained consciousness after only a few weeks, and I hear he is now able to walk again.”
Nathaniel was appalled. “What did you do to him?”
“I did nothing. It is not my fault that he fell into the millstream. I was only trying to push him back. He should never have let his feet get tangled in my knitting like that.”
“So he was injured when he fell into a stream?”
“Oh no, he only got a wetting from the stream. It was the waterwheel of the mill that did him in.”
“He fell under the wheel?”
“Not right away. That was after the footbridge crumbled under him as he tried to climb out.”
“The footbridge?” Good God, maybe she was jinxed.
“Yes, when he caught the big stick I threw to him to help him out of the water. Or rather, tried to catch it. He should never have let go of the side of the mill.”
“No, of course not. How careless of him,” said Nathaniel faintly. The story of Wesley Moss made him feel as though he had narrowly escaped his own death on the road today at midday.
“Well, there you are. Jinxed.”
Nathaniel was confused. What did this have to do with waking up by the side of the lane?
“So, you threw a stick at me?”
“Oh no.” Willa shook her head earnestly. “I never throw sticks anymore. In your case it was a stone. I was attempting to spring a poacher’s trap before some dear hedgehog lost his life. My stone hit a hornets’ nest. Which fell before your horse. But it wasn’t intended. The slingshot was defective.”
Nathaniel felt something wild and vaguely familiar and a bit frightening bubbling up inside him. He clenched his jaw and waited the episode out with grim determination. When he was quite sure he would not laugh, he put the horses to a brisk walking pace and handed Willa back her reins.
She seemed relieved that he wasn’t angry about the slingshot. He was far too bemused to be angry. What kind of woman waited by the road to bag a husband like a rabbit? He hoped the method didn’t catch on.
They rode in silence for over a mile before Nathaniel realized that something was odd. Silence? It was certainly a relief, but after another mile, his unease began to grow.
After the third mile, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled Blunt nose to nose with the mare. They shared a whuffling greeting, which was more than he got from Miss Trent. Finally, he turned to her abruptly. “What is wrong?”
Willa only looked at him. He eyed her suspiciously. Something was up. “Why aren’t you talking? You never stop talking.”
She shrugged.
“Are you ill?”
She shook her head. No.
“Are you angry? Have I offended you?” He felt uneasy, looking back on his behavior. “Why won’t you speak?”
She grinned at him.
“Willa?”
“Being on the receiving end of the silent treatment makes the questions come all by themselves, doesn’t it?”
She had tricked him. Quite neatly, too. Nathaniel could only stare at her, mouth open. This time he couldn’t help himself. He laughed, a single rusty bark.
Now it was
Willa’s turn to stare.
She pointed at him. “You laughed. I heard you. Don’t deny it.”
Nathaniel scowled at her. “And now you are very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.” Her expression was smug. “If I had paper and ink, I should record this event for history. They shall declare it a holiday someday, no doubt.”
“Keep that up, Willa, and you’ll find a spider in your sheets come morning.”
“I like spiders,” she said staunchly, but then she wrinkled her nose. “Although I prefer them to stay out of doors. You wouldn’t, would you? Were you one of those awful boys, full of pranks and wickedness?”
“Nothing so interesting, I’m afraid. I was a sullen little sod, envious of my father’s attentions and spoiled to boot.”
She considered him for a long moment. “Who did your father love better than you? Your brother?”
“I have no brother. Only a foundling boy that my father schooled and encouraged. A poor, hungry boy off the streets—and I was jealous of him. Can you imagine?” He snorted. “I told you I was spiteful.”
Willa smiled. “I can understand that. I shouldn’t have liked sharing my parents’ love with a stranger, I think. What was the boy’s name? If I am bound to hate him for you, then I hope he has a properly poisonous name. Percival? Mortimer?”
“I don’t hate him.” Nathaniel turned his face away. “And his name is Simon.”
Simon, who had rescued five-year-old Nathaniel from kidnappers and had been rewarded with an education and the respect of Nathaniel’s stepfather, Randolph.
Simon, the son Randolph had always wanted. Simon, who could not be used as a weapon in the staged battle that was Randolph’s marriage to Nathaniel’s mother. Simon, the heir who had no title bestowed upon him, no estate to learn the responsibility of, no family, and no ties—Simon was the perfect answer to carry on after Randolph.
Even Nathaniel could understand that. Nathaniel the man, at any rate. Nathaniel the boy had tried so hard to win his stepfather’s love and respect, to make him forget that Nathaniel wasn’t really his son, to forget that he had no father of his own….
Abruptly he kicked Blunt into a canter, away from Willa. She was doing it again. It was uncanny. And unwelcome.
Willa watched him go, mourning the simple moment of friendship that had so quickly soured. Getting to know Nathaniel Stonewell was like peering through chinks in a stone wall. Only glimpses, lovely winning hints that were all too brief. Why couldn’t he just talk to her? His secretiveness was fair to driving her mad with frustrated curiosity.
Regardless, if he wanted to give her the silent treatment, then he should expect to receive the unsilent treatment. Perhaps an hour or two on the virtues of good communication? Then she would tell him about every single individual in Derryton.
And their dogs.
Happily, Willa settled into the saddle for a nice long chat. Nathaniel was going to wish he were dead.
“Please, God, kill me now,” Nathaniel begged under his breath.
If Napoleon had aimed Willa at Europe, Bonaparte would currently be sitting on the British throne. She was relentless, cruel, and unyielding.
For hours she had regaled Nathaniel with tales of village life, from naming the most accomplished belchers in order of importance to dividing the village babies up by degrees of nappy rash.
For the last hour, Nathaniel had longed for death or deafness, whichever might come first.
“Now,” she was currently saying. “The only man in Derryton to ever lose a toe was old Mr. Malcolm Beddleby, who never would use a chamber pot. He claimed they were unsanitary. Summer or winter, day or night, Mr. Beddleby would make his way to the outhouse. One January night, after a large meal of stewed mutton with prunes, Mr. Beddleby found himself—”
They crested a low hill and saw a village up ahead. “We’ll stop there for the night!” Nathaniel interrupted desperately.
The inn here was large and fine. Nathaniel decided to pay for the largest room they had. Perhaps the space would be enough to dispel the sexual thrumming that began within him whenever they were too close. At this point, he didn’t even want to be alone with her in a barn!
No, that brought to mind lying in a bed of sweet-smelling hay, unlacing that nightdress while fully awake, fully aroused, fully—
Blunt whinnied and shook his bridle impatiently, obviously tired of waiting to be led to the water trough. Willa was way ahead of them, standing with her mare at the trough and surreptitiously rubbing at her rear.
He laughed helplessly for a moment, leaning against Blunt’s solid neck. She was so unaffected yet so quick-minded. In truth, he found the combination of intelligence and natural forthrightness rather devastating. She was nothing like any other woman he’d ever met.
He knew a few excellent ladies, of course. They were, quite unfortunately, married to his friends. Other than those few, no woman in England would currently bother to spit on him if he were on fire.
So perhaps it was merely the lack of any female companionship lately that made Willa seem rather special. After all, she wasn’t precisely beautiful—and he’d always preferred beautiful—although she did possess a great deal of innate attractiveness. And a bloody good figure. The stuff of dreams, or at least the stuff of his dreams.
He ruthlessly pulled his mind off that path.
She was quite mad of course. Country living had doubtless driven her round the bend, for she talked more than any three women put together, whether or not he made any sign of listening.
The worst thing was, he found himself being interested in Willa’s stories, and that was surely a bad sign.
She walked back to him, unsuccessfully hiding a limp that made her skirts swing a bit sideways across the cobbles. Her hem was stained and her face was dusty from travel. There was a spot of horse slobber on one sleeve and she had one hand pressing to the small of her back.
Still, she smiled cheerfully at him. “Would you like me to water Blunt for you, darling?”
That was the other thing. All day she had been tossing out these endearments. “Darling.” “Beloved.” “Dear husband.”
And, bizarrely enough, “biscuit.”
“Willa, I really just prefer to be called Nathaniel.”
She shrugged. “Very well, but you started it.”
“I did not!”
“You did so. On the road, at midday. You called me ‘wildflower.’”
“I—” Had he? He was rather uncomfortably sure that he had. “Well, at any rate, it isn’t necessary to use endearments.”
“Of course it isn’t. That isn’t why people do it. They do it to show that they care for one another. But if you like, I won’t call you anything but Nathaniel.”
“Very well then.” He turned away to tend the horses.
“That will be fine, Nathaniel. Thank you, Nathaniel. I’ll be in the inn, Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel halted in his tracks and inhaled deeply for a moment. The calming technique had always worked for him while he was in the thick of political negotiations, so he didn’t understand why it failed him now. Except that there was no defense against a creature from hell.
From hell? Damn, she probably ran the place.
Cold water was the only answer. He considered sticking his head in the trough. If he was really fortunate, he might be allowed to drown.
Willa was very proud of the fact that she managed to wait until Nathaniel had turned the corner to the stables before she succumbed to laughter.
Willa had already gone to their room, but Nathaniel stayed below in the taproom to speak to the innkeeper over a pint of ale.
“He’s a small, thin man, older than me. A gentleman … of sorts.”
The innkeeper rubbed the white stubble on his round jowls. “There was a fellow come through. Yesterday noon it was. He didn’t stay, just swapped horses. I remember because he paid too much for the new horse and his old one was near dead, he pushed it so hard. I told the missus th
at there was a man with more than money at stake.”
Only his neck. Nathaniel thanked the man and paid well for the ale. “Lovely stuff,” he assured the innkeeper.
As Nathaniel walked away, he heard the man mutter, ”Don’t know how he can tell how lovely it is. Didn’t drink a drop.”
Foster was a day and a half ahead. Nathaniel’s last wisp of hope that he would not lose the man in London had vanished. Damnation, the traitor was in the city already!
Scowling, Nathaniel mounted the stairs two at a time. The moment he got Willa to Reardon House tomorrow, he would be able to concentrate completely on finding Foster again. Damn, to have him slip through his fingers when he’d been so close—
He opened the door and strode in, in no mood for Willa’s fey humor now. “We’ll leave before dawn—”
He stopped short with his words unfinished. There, in the candlelight, sitting primly on the bed with her hair falling down around her, was one very naked Willa.
“Are you ready to copulate with me now?”
7
Willa tried very hard not to shiver, but inside she was most definitely shaking. Not so much from cold but from mingled fear and anticipation.
Oddly, she wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of being rejected or accepted. It had taken some determination to make this offer after the episode on the road this afternoon, but then, a part of her was greatly looking forward to more of that sensuous adventure.
And since he obviously hadn’t liked the nightgown, she had gone a bit further this time. She ruthlessly kept her mind far away from the word naked. After all, her tresses were quite long.
He looked at once grim and flabbergasted, standing there at the rim of the candlelight with his lips still parted from speaking and his fair hair mussed from travel. He looked like a slightly gob-smacked highwayman.
Her gaze fell slightly, curiously, to the front of his trousers. The precopulation phenomenon was happening again. She could see him change before her eyes, the same change she had felt when he had pressed her close to him on the road this afternoon.
It was an intriguing spectacle, but an intimidating one as well. Willa knew a great deal about animal reproduction, and she was sure that people weren’t far different.
Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 01] Page 7
