Hours until someone thought to look for them.
Hours until someone saw to Dade’s injury.
Hours until anyone realized that she was in the hands of a mad brute who hadn’t said a single word to her, hadn’t done more than grunt with exertion as he beat Dade to the ground, hadn’t even met her terrified gaze when he’d dragged her off to his horse.
That was perhaps the most chilling thing of all.
Whatever his purpose, whatever his motive, it was quite clear to Callie that she was not a person to this man.
She was an … an obstacle.
He didn’t look like the sort of fellow who would tolerate an obstacle for long.
* * *
Ren felt the chase coming to close. He didn’t bother to interpret the signs: the hoofprints still damp in the soil of the road, the freshness of the twig snapped and fallen to the ground, the droppings that had yet to attract a single fly.
These facts were noted and acknowledged and filed away with the practice of years. All Ren knew was that he had finally caught the bastard.
What remained to be seen was whether or not he’d caught up in time.
* * *
Callie felt the horse slow, its pace faltering no matter how much her captor dug in his heels. If she were healthy, she could leap off now, slide right off the draft horse’s rump and dash away into the hedges.
If she were able, uninjured, her legs not cold and dead, her torso not leaking, her shaking, weak hands not too numb to do more than to knot themselves in her captor’s rough coat.
Escape wasn’t possible. It was all she could do to keep breathing in and out and keeping at bay the gray fog that threatened to close over her vision.
When the big horse finally stopped, it lowered its head and blew great gusts of weariness, ignoring the man who howled and beat at the thick neck with his fists. His elbow swung back in his tantrum, catching Callie across the jaw.
Well, that did it, she thought distantly as she began to slide.
She was unconscious before she hit the ground. This was possibly a fortunate thing.
Ren could hear the man before he saw him. The fellow’s obscene howling curses filled the dell with his rage, masking even Ren’s hell-bent approach.
Ren rounded a curve in the road and took in the scene an instant—the blown horse, foaming with sweat, the thick man beating at it … and the still, limp form of Callie dropped in the dust of the road like a broken doll.
Ren thought he’d been angry before. He thought he knew rage.
He’d never experienced the black tidal wave of murderous intent that rose in him then. He was off his mount while still at a gallop. The big black horse ran past Unwin and Ren dropped upon the man like an avenging demon. Unwin outweighed him by more than two stone and topped him by nearly a foot.
Within minutes, Ren had beaten the fellow unconscious with nothing but his bare fists and his bottomless fury.
Running to Callie, he dropped to his knees beside her. So still, as limp as death. She lay awkwardly, sprawled painfully as if thrown from a great height.
Ren straightened her limbs gently. “Callie?” he coaxed. He smoothed her gown. He pressed his palm to her wound, holding back the blood. Callie. Callie.
He screamed her name. It came out in a whisper. No amount of noise would call her back if she’d gone too far from him.
Callie. She blurred in his vision. He took her hands and pressed her palms to his cheeks. Callie.
He didn’t realize that Dade was there until he knelt across from him, taking one of his sister’s hands from Ren.
“Callie?”
Too loud, Ren wanted to say. You’ll frighten her off.
His own insanity failed to dismay him. His entire existence as a human man lay in the balance. If she woke, he would remember how to walk and talk and think. If she didn’t, then he would let the beast take him and never attempt to rise to the surface again.
He gazed down into her still, pale face. “Wake up, Callie,” he whispered.
A part of him was aware of the driver, with a rag wrapped around his bleeding head, poking at the fallen Unwin with a booted toe. “What’d ye hit ’im with?”
Ren didn’t respond.
Callie.
“He hit him with his hands.” Dade looked up, his voice choked with anger and worry. “I saw it. I rode up just as he finally let him drop. Is he dead?”
The driver grunted. “No. Not so much bein’ alive, as not all the way dead.”
Dade’s hand tightened on Callie’s. “Pity. It was a capital beating. I’ve never seen the like.”
The driver grunted. “Well, Sir’s an Amberdell man, ain’t he?”
Ren reached out and reclaimed that hand. Dade was being too rough, too loud. The ground was too hard, too cold. Ren took Callie into his arms, across his lap, cradling her so gently, so carefully. Callie.
Dade took over, pressing his folded handkerchief to stem the blood.
Ren pressed his cheek to her cool one. Callie.
He kissed her forehead, her eyes, the tip of her nose. I cannot lose you. Callie.
He called her again and again, his voice hardly more than air on her ear. Callie.
She warmed in his careful, sheltered hold. Her cheeks changed from chill marble to a softer pale pink. He thought he saw her chest rise higher, her breath deepen.
Callie. I need you.
She stirred at last, just a flutter of her eyelids, a parting of her lips.
Come on. Come closer.
Come back.
I love you.
At last, her eyes opened. She gazed up at him, unfocused and confused.
Ren held his breath. She blinked and scowled slightly. Then she swallowed.
“Did you kill him?” Her voice was just a rasp.
Ren’s voice stopped working. Dade answered for him. “No.”
Callie closed her eyes. “Pity.” She opened them again, gazing up at Ren with some urgency. “The horse—not his fault—”
Ren blinked rapidly. Callie, two steps from death herself, yet worried about the damned horse.
He thought he might perhaps remain a man after all, just to see what she’d say next.
She focused on his face with some effort, then frowned again. “Why did you come after me?”
Because I cannot breathe without you near me. “I learned the culprit at last,” he explained awkwardly. “This fellow is obsessed with Henry’s wife, Betrice. He felt you took her rightful place as lady of Amberdell. He meant to remove you from that place.”
“So … you removed me instead?”
“I…” In truth, he had. “That isn’t…” He shook his head quickly. “I wanted you out of harm’s way. But it is over. We can go home now.”
She drew back slightly. “What of what you said before—your old life?”
“Life?” He dropped his face into her hair. “I never took a true breath until I met you.”
“But … all those things you said. It would be selfish of me to keep you home.”
“I lied. I only wanted you safely away. My old … friends wouldn’t allow me back, nor would I go back. I’ve found something new to believe in, you see.”
She gazed at him with shadows of doubt in her eyes. “The ring?”
He nearly wept. “A trick. That girl left me with my scars and my pride in tatters, but I never loved her. I never loved anyone until I loved you.” He cursed his own talent for finding weakness, for nurturing uncertainty. How could he convince her now that he’d meant not a word of it?
He wrapped his hands around both of hers and gazed into her eyes, willing her to believe. “Calliope Worthington Porter, I vow to you that I will hire servants, and tend my lands and look after my people and look after you and protect you from flaming birds and madmen and musket balls and rickety ladders—”
“And asps.”
“And asps. Most of all from serpents of all kinds.” He pressed her hands to his cheek. “If I do all that, will you co
me home with me?”
She pulled her hands away slowly, her small fingers slipping away from him. He did not tighten his grasp. If she didn’t wish to be his lady, he would not force her to be.
His heart shivered in the growing chill. Though it was only early evening, he saw the world darken. The beast stirred, sure of its triumph.
Her hands fell from his. She pulled them away, drawing them up toward her throat.
What a fool I am. She doesn’t want me. She shouldn’t want me. There is no place in her light for a man of shadows.
Her fingers scrabbled nervously at her neckline. Ren blinked at what she pulled out, twined about her fingers.
“What—”
With a weak but determined yank, Callie broke the strand of pearls that he himself had fastened about her neck that morning. Ren watched without comprehension until she raised her dampened gaze to meet his.
As the pearls spilled down over the two of them, she gave him a bruised, rueful smile. “It seems we shall have to start over,” she said softly.
The joy in Ren’s heart burst through the last remaining shreds of darkness, burning away the beast forever.
He grinned down at his valiant, irrepressible, unsinkable Callie. “Yes,” he breathed. “No rules this time.”
She shook her head. “Just one. Say it again. Say it every day. Forever.”
He pulled her close, as gently as he would hold an injured bird. “I love you, Calliope Worthington Porter. I shall love you until the day I die.”
“And after that?”
He took a deep breath of her hair. “After that I shall simply have to love you forever.”
Epilogue
“Darling, have you seen my paintbrush? I’ve just collected my first specimens of the spring and I cannot find it anywhere!”
Ren looked up from the estate ledgers on his desk and smiled at his lovely bride, who stood in the doorway of his study looking slightly exasperated. A perfect strand of pearls gleamed against her throat. Should he tell her that she’d used the brush as a hairpin again? Yes, he should, but before he did so, he wanted to fill his gaze with her wide, inquiring eyes and his hands with the rich honey fall of her hair when he pulled out the paintbrush.
He moved his chair back. She flowed into his lap without further urging. One of them was well trained. A year into their marriage and he still hadn’t figured out which one.
His hands moved over her back, digging gently into the muscles that still pained her when she was weary. They both had their scars. She purred and fitted herself more snugly into him.
Yes. It was time to admit that he did know who was well trained.
“It’s our anniversary,” she mused aloud. “I think it most unfair of you to survey the estate books on our anniversary.”
He smiled. “Our anniversary is tomorrow. As in, tomorrow your family descends upon Amberdell, bringing chaos, mayhem, and disorder.” Or, in his mind, Cas, Poll, and Attie, respectively.
Callie kissed his neck. “Today, as in, today is your last chance to roger me on the dining table for our wedding anniversary.”
His eyes crossed with lust. He began to kiss down her neck, down to her lush and lovely bosom. Pink nipples for elevenses …
Wait. No. There was something he meant to do first …
He sat up and pushed her regretfully off his lap. “I’m afraid I’m terribly busy. In fact, if you might assist me, I shall reward you by telling you where your paintbrush is.”
Disgruntled by his rejection, Callie folded her arms and tapped her toe.
Ren busied himself with his paperwork. “There is a volume on the mantel over the fire.” He gestured vaguely at the hearth. “If you wouldn’t mind…”
He heard her heave a sigh and stomp across the study. He waited. Calliope Worthington Porter had never met a book she didn’t like. He knew she’d not be able to resist reading the title …
She gasped.
And the author.
He looked up at last to find her clutching the volume and blinking at the spine. Then she opened the book and flipped to the title page with shaking fingers.
“Wildflowers of the Cotswolds,” she read in a whisper. “By Calliope, Lady Porter.”
She sank down into one of the fireside chairs without looking, her rapt gaze on the pages and pages of color plates, each gorgeously depicting a Calliope Porter original botanical drawing.
“I believe there’s a dedication,” Ren said mildly.
She gazed at him with wide eyes, then looked back down to find it.
“‘When daisies pied and violets blue,’” she read aloud, “‘And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.’”
Ren smiled slightly. “Love’s Labours Lost,” he announced. “Act five, scene two.”
She blinked and shook her head. “How—but you haven’t left the estate in months! However did you manage this?”
He leaned back in his chair, well pleased with himself, treasuring her dumbfounded joy. “Button, of course, with a bit of help from your mother. They worked rather brilliantly together, actually. I am much impressed.”
Callie blinked, clearly arrested by some errant thought.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “No … it’s just a silly notion.” She shook her head again. “There is more than one theater in London, after all,” she said to herself. “They might never have met in those days…”
Ren frowned. “Iris and Button? I suppose they might have—”
He had that feeling, the woozy sensation of being a mere cog in some greater machine. The connection slid into place. “Callie,” he said slowly, “on the night the bridge washed out—where were you four going?”
Callie shook her head, the ghost of a smile lingering on her lips. “Mama wouldn’t tell me. It was meant to be a surprise.”
Just as he’d suspected. Slowly, Ren leaned forward and slid the paintbrush from her hair. As the wealth of silken waves fell into his hands, he smiled. “Happy anniversary … to me.”
She plucked the paintbrush from his fingers. “Meet you in the dining room.” She gave him a sultry look. “Don’t forget to bring your sword.”
Also by
CELESTE BRADLEY
The Runaway Brides
Devil in My Bed
Rogue in My Arms
Scoundrel in My Dreams
The Heiress Brides
Desperately Seeking a Duke
The Duke Next Door
The Duke Most Wanted
The Royal Four
To Wed a Scandalous Spy
Surrender to a Wicked Spy
One Night with a Spy
Seducing the Spy
The Liar’s Club
The Pretender
The Impostor
The Spy
The Charmer
The Rogue
Fallen
A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man (with Susan Donovan)
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
CELESTE BRADLEY
and her previous novels and series
ROGUE IN MY ARMS
“Bradley doesn’t disappoint with the second in her Runaway Brides trilogy, which is certain to have readers laughing and crying. Her characters leap off the page, especially little Melody, the precocious ‘heroine,’ and her three fathers. There’s passion, adventure, nonstop action, and secrets that make the pages fly by.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“When it comes to crafting fairy tale–like, wonderfully escapist historicals, Bradley is unrivaled, and the second addition to her Runaway Brides trilogy cleverly blends madcap adventure and sexy romance.”
—Booklist
DEVIL IN MY BED
“From its unconventional prologue to its superb conclusion, every page of the first in Bradley’s Runaway Brides series is perfection and joy. Tinged with humor that never overshadows the poign
ancy and peopled with remarkable characters (especially the precocious Melody who will steal your heart), this one’s a keeper.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“Part romantic comedy, part romantic suspense, and wholly entertaining, Devil in My Bed is a delight!”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Laughter, tears, drama, suspense, and a heartily deserved happily-ever-after.”
—All About Romance
DUKE MOST WANTED
“Passionate and utterly memorable. Witty dialogue and fantastic imagery round out a novel that is a must-have for any Celeste Bradley fan.”
—Romance Junkies
“A marvelous, delightful, emotional conclusion to Bradley’s trilogy. Readers have been eagerly waiting to see what happens next, and they’ve also been anticipating a nonstop, beautifully crafted story, which Bradley delivers in spades.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
THE DUKE NEXT DOOR
“This spectacular, fast-paced, sexy romance will have you in laughter and tears. With delightful characters seeking love and a title, [this] heartfelt romance will make readers sigh with pleasure.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“Not only fun and sexy but relentlessly pulls at the heartstrings. Ms. Bradley has set the bar quite high with this one!”
—Romance Readers Connection
DESPERATELY SEEKING A DUKE
“A humorous romp of marriage mayhem that’s a love-and-laughter treat, tinged with heated sensuality and tenderness. [A] winning combination.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
“A tale of lies and treachery where true love overcomes all.”
—Romance Junkies
About the Author
CELESTE BRADLEY is the New York Times bestselling author of the Runaway Brides, Heiress Brides, Liar’s Club, and Royal Four series. Her novel Fallen was nominated for a RITA in 2002. “When you are overendowed with imagination and underendowed with punctuality, become a writer.” Years of dreaming on the job paid off when Celeste Bradley quit the mainstream in 1999 and started writing historical romance. “Handsome heroes beat out cranky customers every time!” Bradley lives in New Mexico with her family, her desert garden, and so many pets the house sometimes feels like an ark. You can visit her Web site at www.celestebradley.com.
When She Said I Do Page 34
