by Nancy Butler
She trailed him into the backyard and watched in bewilderment, as he snagged the cloth that hung on the door to the heron’s enclosure and entered the pen. The heron stalked away, and Romulus followed, speaking to him gently. He wrapped the cloth over the bird’s head, then tucked him under one arm.
As he came out, Diana looked up at him with sorrowful eyes. Romulus chucked her under the chin with his free hand. “Don’t look so sad, my witch. It’s a happy day for our reluctant guest.”
She followed him along the path, skipping sometimes to keep up with his long-legged stride. When they reached the southern tip of the island, he set the bird down on its side and carefully removed the splint.
“Come see,” he said over his shoulder. “But don’t go too near the water in case someone is watching.”
Diana moved in closer. The heron’s leg was now completely healed, except for a slight ridge where the break had occurred. Rom drew the cloth from the bird’s head and then stepped away, pulling Diana back into the trees. The heron flapped his wings erratically, lofting himself awkwardly into a standing position. He took several tentative steps, cocking his head once or twice to gaze at his mended leg. Then after shooting a baleful look at the two humans behind him, he ran slowly forward into the shallows, lifting his wide wings to catch the air currents over the river. Diana held her breath, as for an instant the bird hung in midair. Then with a rush of motion he sailed out over the water, flying low, in long, graceful swoops.
Romulus leaned down and whispered. “That is the way of wild things, Allegra. They must return always to their true home.”
“I’m not a wild thing!”
“Ah, but I think you are. Untamed and unfettered.” His hands slid to her shoulders and tightened slightly. “A wild thing who hasn’t yet learned to trust.”
“I trust you, Romulus,” she signed. It would be heaven to lean against him, to feel the vital strength of him along her back. But his hands held her away from him.
“Then tell me, little witch. Trust me enough to tell me what I’ve waited nearly a week to hear.”
Diana thought she must be dreaming…could he mean that he wanted her to tell him of her love for him? But her illusions were shattered when he added, “Tell me why you lied about losing your memory.”
“Oh,” she uttered, not attempting to hide her disappointment at that less-than-ardent question.
He waited, turning her so he could see her face. She stood there with a blank expression in her eyes.
“That’s all? Just ‘Oh.’ You get high marks for brevity, my girl, but I’m not going to let you sidestep the issue. We’ve got to get this settled between us before we part.”
“No!” It slipped out before she could prevent it. All her heartache was contained in that one tiny word.
He tipped her chin back with one finger. “Don’t look at me like your world has just ended. Sometimes the closing of one episode only marks the beginning of another.”
She shifted her head back from his touch. “If we are to part, then what does it matter if I lied to you?”
Romulus ran his teeth over his lower lip. “I…I was hoping you would make me a gift of your honesty before…before we had to say our farewells.”
She felt the anguish begin in the pit of her stomach. It radiated out through her body until it reached every nerve ending. She had never known such pain. All the wise voices that had warned her that this idyll must end had not prepared her for the shattering numbness that would overpower her when that time came.
“I cannot speak of it,” she said raggedly. “Except to say that I am sorry I deceived you.”
“I’ll row you to Hamish House first thing in the morning. But I’d like to hear from your own lips where your real home might be.”
“My home is not along the river,” she said with sudden intensity. “It is hundreds of miles from here.”
He sighed. “More lies, Allegra? You came to me on the water, or have you forgotten? You couldn’t have lasted more than a few miles in that maelstrom without overturning or having your boat’s bottom stove in. I wager you live within four miles of this very spot.”
“That is mere guesswork on your part.”
Romulus flicked her cheek. “You forget, the river has no secrets from me.”
Diana eyed him suspiciously. “And what of the secrets you keep from me?”
He refused to meet her eyes. “I bared my soul to you last night…or have you forgotten that?”
“Little good that did either of us,” she uttered crossly. “Yes, you were honest with me last night. But you don’t offer yourself the same courtesy. At least I am not so foolish as to lie to myself.”
“No, only to others,” he snapped. “Sweet Jesus, Allegra. I don’t want to fight with you. These are our last hours together. What difference does it make now if either of us has lied?”
“None at all, now that you are determined to be rid of me.”
“Ach, don’t say it in such a way.” He reached toward her, to comfort her, to soothe the hurt expression from her soft mouth. She ended up enfolded in his arms, her head pressed to his shoulder. Just one embrace, he thought, one blessed moment with Allegra held against his heart, then he would set her free. Forever.
But she had wrapped her arms about his neck and was clinging to him with all her strength. “Don’t make me leave,” she whispered urgently against his shirt. “I’m not sure I can bear it.”
“I think you can,” he said as he gently disengaged himself from her. “We’ve had a splendid time of it this past week. But you must go. We both know it is the only way. Those first steps may be a bit wobbly, my dearest girl, but you will fly.”
At the moment she looked as though all she wanted to do was cry. He saw the first tears glistening on her lashes and knew if she shed even one of them, he would be lost.
“Now come along,” he said with false heartiness. “We’ve still got the cygnets to feed.”
“Yes,” she muttered as she followed behind him. “More creatures who will be booted out of the only haven they’ve ever known.”
“What was that?” Romulus had stopped on the path to wait for her to catch up.
“Nothing,” she replied, gazing at the tips of her sandals. “Must be the wind in the trees.”
Rom looked up at the oak and ash that rose above them. Not one leaf stirred in that wide field of green. He cast her a look of aching fondness before he moved off again. “Yes, I expect that’s what I heard.”
Diana insisted on feeding the cygnets alone. She needed some time to herself to calm the wretched confusion in her heart. If she stayed, she knew, he would be accused of compromising her and forfeit his position with Lady Hamish. But if she went home, she would lose him forever. She couldn’t imagine Romulus coming to Mortimer House to pay court to her in his rude buckskin jacket and water-stained leather gaiters. Last night at supper he had worn neat, corded breeches and a fine lawn shirt, but even they fell far short of what the Mortimers would consider proper gentlemanly apparel. Helen would look shocked and scornful, and James would have him thrown from the house.
Her despair was mixed with a certain inarticulate anger that the sneaking Argie Beasle had been the cause of her imminent banishment. How infuriating that a miserable river rat had come between her and Romulus. And she could not think of any possible way to foil him. Not unless Romulus cast his scruples to the winds and asked her to stay with him.
Tell him, a tiny voice piped at her, as though the cygnets spoke in unison. Tell Romulus you love him.
She could do it, she thought. She could declare her feelings. This might be her last chance to say the words. But still the petrifying fear choked her. He loved her enough to have revealed the story behind his torment last night. The problem was, he didn’t love himself enough to think he was worthy of anything. That had been the gutwrenching coda to his tale—he was still too racked by guilt to accept anyone’s love.
Diana stifled her unprofitable meanderings and we
nt to find Romulus. He had reminded her that these were the last hours they would spend together, and she was determined to savor every one.
He was in his herb garden, digging at the dirt with a small spade.
She settled on one of the porch benches and watched him in silence. He tended the small plot as he did all things, with pleasure and precision. He moved gracefully among the flowering herbs—like Pan among the hyssop blossoms, she mused.
She had a fleeting image of him years down the road, still tending to the swans and the island, still toiling in his garden. And still very much alone. She at least would be returning to her family. He’d made it clear last night that his father was all the family he’d had. Some new sorrow worked its way into her overburdened heart—sorrow for a man so inured to loneliness that he would let love slip from his grasp, rather than admit his need for her. It would take a mighty battle to shake such an admission from him.
Something was buzzing in Diana’s brain, even louder than the bees hovering around Rom’s lavender. The words he had spoken during the thunderstorm came ringing back to her. “There is only alone, Diana, that’s all there ever is.”
He had called her Diana!
She leaned over the railing, venturing the question even before it was fully formed in her head. “Romulus, how long have you known who I am?”
He didn’t even look up from the mint he was pruning. “Since the night we went out on the river.”
“How…?” The word came out low and wavering.
He raised his eyes to her. Even from ten feet away she could see their rich golden gleam. “I found your boat—Mortimers’ boat—downstream from here.”
“It could have been carried away from the dock by the flood,” she said impatiently. “It proves nothing.”
He stood upright and fished in his pocket. “Here,” he said as he came to the porch railing and held out his hand. “This was caught on one of the oarlocks.”
She looked down and saw the wilted satin rosebud that had once embellished the hem of her ball gown. The salient fact that he had been carrying it about with him did not occur to her until much later.
He returned the rosebud to his pocket and crossed his arms upon the railing. “Niall learned of Beveril’s runaway bride-to-be at Mortimer House. Then I knew for certain who you were.”
Diana shifted away from the railing, turning her face from him. She needed to digest this startling bit of news, that Romulus had known her true identity—and that she was Beveril’s intended wife—for three days and yet had continued to keep her hidden on the island.
That knowledge thrilled her beyond words. He had not only flown in the face of convention by doing such a thing, he had risked rousing the anger of his longstanding antagonist. The benevolent Lady Hamish would not have forced him from the island, she knew, but Sir Beveril would have had no compunction about casting Romulus from his home. Yet Rom had not let that threat deter him from keeping her there.
And now he had given her the means to shake him from his formidable reserve. Sir Beveril was the key. She prayed she possessed the acting skills necessary to deceive him this one last time, and the strength of will to strike at the area where he was most vulnerable.
He broke into her reverie. “So I gather you are done with your playacting now?”
No, she responded silently, I’ve only just begun.
“I wondered why you allowed me to stay here for so long,” she said stiffly. “Why you let me intrude on your solitude. Now I know the reason.”
“Do you, Allegra?” His voice was no more than a sigh.
“It was because of Sir Beveril, wasn’t it?”
“What?” His hands were now gripping the railing.
“Niall told me there is a great deal of enmity between you and Sir Beveril, that you dislike him excessively. Niall said you must be feeling guilty for keeping me here—”
“Niall should learn to keep his tongue between his teeth,” Romulus muttered.
“You saw it as a way to mortify Beveril, didn’t you, keeping me hidden away on this island?”
“I don’t recall tying you to the bed to make you stay,” he responded hotly.
Her eyes flashed at him as she rose to her feet. “No, you won me over with kindness. Or so I thought. But you were just using me as a pawn, to strike out at my fiancé. The longer I remained on the island, the more it would serve to embarrass Beveril.”
“Sir Beveril doesn’t need me to embarrass him,” Romulus bit out. “He does just fine on his own.”
“I don’t hear you denying the accusation.”
Rom’s jaw tightened as he shifted his gaze away from her.
Diana pointed her finger at him and crowed, “Aha! I was right. I see it in your eyes. It’s clear that your care and attention to me were as much of a sham as my loss of memory.”
“Allegra!” he cried. “Can you truly believe that?”
She nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. “I only wonder that you didn’t take full advantage of the situation, once you had me in your hands. That would have served Beveril a pretty turn.” Diana almost gasped at her provoking words. But then she steeled herself. This was raw combat, indeed, and like Romulus, she was finding she had little taste for carnage. But their whole future together was at stake. She added archly, “And I expect even a madman knows how to cozen a woman.”
“I think you have said enough,” he responded in a low, dangerous voice as he swung around the railing and came up the steps toward her. “You really don’t have a clue as to why I let you remain here, do you?”
Diana tried not to wilt under his awesome scowl. “I can only surmise it was to tweak Sir Beveril.”
“Then you are a bloody fool.”
She drew herself up and looked him straight in the eyes. “Then tell me the reason. Tell me, Romulus.”
He turned from her, his eyes hooded, his body tense. She saw the battle that was going on inside him, his rising temper warring with his need to stay aloof and detached. It was time to bring out the big guns.
She clutched at his shoulder and spun him to face her. “An honorable man,” she began in a voice of ice, “would have told me the instant he knew my real identity. Not let me continue on with that foolish charade. An honorable man, one with no ulterior motive, would have forced me to go back to my family.”
His response was a low growl. “An honorable man would not have forced you back, not to a situation from which you had fled, even at the risk of your own life.”
“I didn’t flee!” she wailed, forgetting to playact, as she thrust her hands into the skirt of her gown to keep from striking out at him in frustration. “I didn’t risk my life to get away. That is some nonsensical notion you have taken into your head. I was hiding in the dashed rowboat to avoid Beveril. It…it came untied. I never meant to be on the river, never meant to fall in the water…. I certainly never meant to end up here.”
“But you did!” he stormed, looming over her. “You did end up here. And I wish to bloody hell that the river had taken you, not dropped you in a sodden heap at my feet. I thought you were fleeing from danger, and now it turns out it was nothing more than a case of bridal nerves.” He bit out the last words.
“Oooh!” she cried. “What a wretched thing to say!”
“You lied to me, Allegra,” he continued in a frighteningly quiet voice. “And played me for a fool. And if that wasn’t infuriating enough, you now have the gall to throw my hospitality back in my face and accuse me of the worst sort of villainy. I’d thrash you for saying those things if you were a man—”
Her eyes narrowed as she poked her chin in the air, “You wouldn’t dare!”
He held his clenched fists up close to her chin. “Aah! You tempt me, Allegra—”
“I’m not Allegra!” she spat, pushing his hands away. “I was never Al—”
He caught her wrists, twisting her hands behind her back. She thrashed in his hold as she had done the night he pulled her from the water, suddenly
afraid of what her hurtful words had driven him to. There was only anger in his eyes, spewing out in response to her unjust accusations. Anger and pain, and yet, behind them was a blinding hunger. He leaned over her and tugged her hard against him, bringing the soft thrust of her breasts against his chest and the rounded contours of her hip against his thigh. The more she struggled the more she brought herself into contact with his body.
For one instant Romulus held her gaze, and Diana saw all the yearning she felt in her own heart reflected there. The next instant, his eyes blazed again with heat. He butted her head back roughly, his brow at her throat, and then quickly angled his mouth over hers. He kissed her wildly, violently, taking out his fury on her mouth. He tangled one hand in her hair, fisting it in the mass of curls, keeping her head still so that he could have at her mouth, again and again. Diana groaned against his lips, and Romulus echoed her with a deep, crooning moan. It wasn’t the declaration she had been hoping for, but it thrilled her to the tips of her toes. She tried to pull her hands free so that she could twine them around his neck.
Romulus felt it the instant she stopped resisting him, and if he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn she was arching herself against him. He could feel the rapid beating of her heart beneath the rise of her breasts where they splayed upon his chest. Suddenly his anger and pain were gone, burned away by the lush, potent feel of her in his arms. And then there was only the hunger left, the need to lose himself in her. But with that howling hunger came his conscience, loping along at its heels.
His hands were suddenly trembling where they touched her, quivering at her back.
“Allegra,” he gasped against her mouth. “You are Allegra.” His lips slid to her cheek as he gripped her shoulders. “You will always be Allegra to me,” he breathed into her hair. He drew his head back.
There were tears now in her gentian eyes. This wondrous girl who had cried over the death of a swan, now wept over what she had suffered at his hands. He set her gently away from him and stepped back. She stood shivering, head tipped up, arms limp at her sides. Her eyes were clouded with shock.
“Wo…” was all she managed to rasp out in a plaintive voice. It nearly brought him to his knees.
