by Janet Woods
The hour flew by quickly and by the time Ryder returned Adele had a good grasp of what she could spend and what she couldn’t. She wasn’t wealthy, but was comfortably off thanks to her mother and grandmother. She could get by well if she exercised a little discipline over her spending.
Ryder knocked at the door and entered just as Mr Tessler was saying, ‘I advise you not to spend too much on the upkeep of Duck Pond Cottage in case the matter goes to court and the case is ruled against you. Mr Ashburn has kept the repairs up to date so far, since your aunts have a limited income.’
‘Then he must be remunerated. Perhaps you would see to it,’ she said.
‘For him to accept money from you would be to admit that his claim to the cottage is invalid, and that that Duck Pond Cottage is yours.’
‘It is mine and I don’t care what Ashburn thinks. Return his money, and make sure he provides a receipt. I can prove the cottage is mine.’
Tessler sighed. ‘Do you have the deeds and your grandmother’s will with you? I could keep them safely in my strong box.’
She gave Ryder a quick glance and because she didn’t want to lie to Mr Tessler she offered him a half-truth. ‘They’re in a safe place.’
Tessler nodded. ‘I will need to see them the next time you come into Poole.’
Ryder waited until they were outside before he said, ‘Why didn’t you tell him you’ve lost the documents?’
‘Because they’re not lost … it’s just … well, I have simply mislaid them.’
‘That’s an odd way of putting it.’
‘Is it?’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know whether I can trust Mr Tessler.’
‘What is it about him that you don’t trust?’
‘I don’t know. He was on Ashburn’s side at first, and when he bullied me a little Tessler protested, but it didn’t seem genuine. When you arrived he became much nicer.’
‘Being an earl does have its uses at times.’ He bore her hand to his lips, leaving tender kisses on her palm and where the warm pulse beat in her wrist.
‘Don’t do that, Ryder. Someone might see us and read the situation wrongly.’
‘They are more likely to read it correctly. They will say the earl is a fool if he still finds the woman who wronged him attractive.’
‘You’ve never been that.’
‘They will wonder if we are lovers, and they will talk about it after church. You, my delicious Del, will attract the gazes of men, and they will be bolder than you would like for comfort. The women will turn their backs to you while they simper at me.’
‘Stop it, Ryder.’
‘Why should you be worried about your reputation? You lost that when you left town with Pelham, and deservedly so.’
Pain ripped through her. ‘I know … and don’t think I haven’t suffered for it.’
‘What did Ashburn want with you?’
‘He wanted to discuss the ownership of the cottage. Mr Tessler is on Ashburn’s side. I think.’
‘Hmmm … is he, by God.’ They walked a short way, the air an invisible but living fog of tension around them. The town bustled. Fashionably dressed women paraded. The men wore their tall hats and the wind made a mockery of skirts, bonnet and hats alike. Ryder tucked his hat under his arm allowing his hair to blow where it would. At the end of the High Street the quay was busy with fishing boats that bobbed, pulled and shifted.
The quay was piled high with coiled ropes, barrels of salted fish and boxes of candles as the tall ships provisioned for long journeys ahead. Men swung from the rigging like monkeys, whistling and singing. It was a fair and busy day. Across the rippled water Brownsea Island divided the entrance to the harbour. Beyond, a pile of clouds was in the process of being whipped into shreds by the wind.
She remembered a game they’d played. They would whisper something into the wind and see if the other one guessed what it was.
Unable to bear the silence between them she looked up, catching him at the moment when he was gazing down at her. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Ryder,’ she said in a voice that was surely too low to be heard.
‘Whispers,’ he answered. ‘I wasn’t angry with you, I was enjoying a moment of being home.’
They gazed at each other and smiled, spat forgotten.
Adele said, ‘You returned my dowry. You didn’t have to.’
‘I didn’t feel entitled to keep it.’
‘You were.’
He afforded her a glance, deep and blue. ‘Are you suggesting I should have kept your dowry in lieu of the wifely services you promised me? As I recall, you performed those without a ring on your finger and with no shame at all. Some would call you a forward hussy … though others probably have.’
She gasped at his bluntness and struggled to find an answer. ‘What is obvious to me is you’re no longer the gentleman I once knew.’
He drew her out of the wind and into the protection of an empty wagon. ‘You only knew the youth. You’re right, though … I lost my pride that day, as well as you.’
‘For about a year I kept hoping you’d rescue me.’ She gave a faint smile. ‘I imagined you fighting a duel over me … then reality set in, and I knew you’d forgotten me.’
‘I was ashamed to show my face and went to London. You could have left him and come after me. You knew where my London rooms were situated. I waited, and drank myself silly. It took a while to reconcile myself with your betrayal of me.’
There was a catch in her throat when she said, ‘Pride would have prevented you from taking me back.’
A wry smile flirted around his mouth. ‘Probably, though I might have done, or I might have strangled you and since I was royally inebriated for a month or two we will never know now. Hal lifted me from the gutter, but for my own peace of mind I should have left you on the heath.’
‘Then you never would have known peace of mind again.’
‘How well you know me.’
‘I was surprised to discover you’d joined the army, you were never aggressive.’
‘Yet you imagined me fighting a duel, the quintessential romantic hero. You could not have been as surprised as I was.’ Laughter huffed from him. ‘Hal said I had a death wish, and a bullet was quicker than the contents of a brandy bottle.’
She reached out to touch his cheek and he took her hand in his. ‘Someone should have given me a tin medal for surviving your treachery. I could have worn a heroic, broken heart on my sleeve.’
She jerked her hand away. ‘Stop wallowing in self-pity, Ryder, I didn’t ask you to rescue me from the heath. Anyone else would have done.’
‘Nobody else would take on the task and I felt obligated, even though I thought you to be a stranger. What would you have done if the aunts had turned their backs on you?’
‘Sarah and I would have found employment somewhere, I expect.’
A little savagely, he said, ‘But first you would have prevailed upon me for help with the consequence of your tale of woe, exactly as you have done. I would have helped you, like the fool I always was. You were almost dead when I found you. You had no strength left for employment. May I remind you, my delicious little betrayer, you were entirely at my mercy.’
‘And may I remind you that you could have taken advantage of that, but you didn’t. I thought you’d died in India. I mourned you then, my dearest friend. I know how wronged you would have felt, and would rather have died a thousand times on the heath than experience again the grief I felt then.’
He laughed, a husky little chuckle, and planted his hands on the splintery grey planks that formed the wagon’s side. ‘Now who’s indulging in self-pity … not to mention a little melodrama? Sentimental issues such as love didn’t really come into it. We were children, doing what was expected of us because our fathers said it would be thus. You had fair looks and intelligence. I considered that you’d breed well and would provide the Madigan estate with heirs, but then, so would have fifty other women.’
Adele winced. How cold-blooded Ryder made it soun
d. ‘So you didn’t love me at all, you just pretended to.’
‘Is that how it seemed to you? So why were you broken-hearted?’
She’d never been able to out-argue Ryder. ‘It was you who suggested that I might have been, but then, you always had a vivid imagination. Your pride was dented because you couldn’t have your own damned way, and real feelings like love didn’t come into it.’
‘Wrong, Del, I did love you … in a brotherly fashion, then later in my early manhood in a more carnal manner, and that brought a result of sorts, but even so, don’t think you were the only woman in my life. I’m no longer the naive youth who imagined himself in love.’
He leaned closer and she caught a sniff of some exotic, but manly aroma. Limes. It took her back to when they’d been youthful sweethearts and she had a sudden urge to press her nose against his smoothly shaven chin and inhale him into her body. His boots bore a flawless shine and his clothes were immaculate. He’d rehired his former valet, or so her aunt Prudence had told her. In the short time he’d been home he’d been transformed from a rather shabby soldier into the elegant and imposing image of her beloved Lord Madigan again.
The depths of his eyes took on a smoky hue. ‘Attraction is a perplexing thing, isn’t it? I’ve learned that when I see something I want, if I pursue it I usually end up getting it. I want you, Del. I want you to love me again, and despite what happened between us I want you in my bed.’
‘And then?’
‘Perhaps I’ll abandon you in the same callous way you abandoned me, and when you least expect it.’
She knew Ryder. He didn’t have it in him to be so calculating. Or did he! ‘You’re lying, Ryder, you’d never be deliberately spiteful.’
He stroked his finger softly down her cheek and across her mouth, producing a shivery feeling. ‘We’ll see, Del. We’ll see.’
‘You seduced me in the first place and now you seek to ruin my reputation again by placing the blame on me. What sort of man are you? Why is the blame always put on the woman when it’s men who do the seducing.’
‘I’m a man like any other. As for your reputation, unjust as it may seem, and I agree that it is, it’s already tarnished.’ He gave a lazy laugh and his eyes hooded slightly. ‘I could argue that you seduced me. I remember every moment. You were delicious, and shy, my Del. Your skin shone and it felt like silk under my fingertips. You were all breathless and blushing … and so willing to be loved.’
Her mind went into turmoil when she sensed the response in her body. There had been times when they discovered each other under the midsummer moonlight – when they’d become lovers in the flesh. She’d lain in his arms, loving him as he’d loved her, as though there was no tomorrow … or so she’d thought.
She fought it now, that physical attraction. Was that all it had been? What a price she’d paid for giving in to that all-consuming moment – when she couldn’t say no to nature’s urging. She remembered the prickle of hay against her buttocks, the heat of her core as they joined in a loving fever, her shyness afterward. Then he’d touched her tender breasts with his probing tongue and they’d loved each other all over again.
He didn’t know about the son conceived from that coupling, born too soon and without the strength to take a first breath … his death the result of a beating when Edgar had heard of the child’s existence. Her little lost infant hadn’t been much longer than her forearm. He’d been fully formed but not ready for the world, and although his eyes were closed he’d had tiny toes and fingers, and a wisp or two of dark hair. She touched a fingertip against the locket she wore, a small dark curl of hair enclosed inside for her to mourn. He’d had the look of Ryder about him, and how she’d loved that helpless little soul, even though he had never taken a breath.’
She cherished the pain inside her and closed her eyes so he couldn’t see the anguish in them. ‘Is that how you see me now, as something you want in your bed? Would you bring me down so completely?’
‘We’re not completely unfamiliar with the rite of coupling, as I recall. I can no longer marry you of course, since you’re no longer tidy. I would be willing to keep you as my mistress, though.’
‘It was you who ruined me. There has never been any other—’ She shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t countenance either.’
His eyes sharpened and she said wearily, since she was tired of justifying her existence and all she wanted to do was rest her head against his shoulder and tell him all, ‘How many mistresses have you enjoyed, and do you treat them with equal contempt?’
‘The least I can do is allow them the dignity of remaining anonymous.’ He pulled her close and caught her by the arms. ‘Allow this to be a small token, so you know what your dowry would have bought you, had you decided to honour our contract.’
His mouth closed over hers, tender and warm. For a moment Adele gave in to it and died a thousand loving deaths. At that moment she would have willingly become his mistress. But hadn’t he just offered her that elevated position?
Panic closed in on her. She couldn’t breathe and blindly struck out.
‘Easy, Del,’ he soothed, as if he were gentling a horse, and when he kissed her fingers she remembered that this was Ryder Madigan, not Edgar Pelham.
Ryder would never hurt her physically. Never! As for Edgar Pelham, he couldn’t hurt her ever again.
He was dead.
She knew that for certain. She’d killed him!
Six
There had been a moment just before the fright surfaced in Adele’s forest-green eyes and she’d thrust him aside. There had been a moment when … when what? Something eluded Ryder. Then he remembered and he snatched it from the air before it disappeared. That moment was the fear in the eyes of men a heartbeat before the fatal thrust of the bayonet.
Though far from being a coward, apart from the companionship of his comrades in arms, Ryder had not enjoyed the battles or the killing that was part of army life. Wherever possible he had taken a life only out of necessity, in defence of himself, his fellow soldiers or civilians.
In Adele he had recognized the same pain and the fear. Adele was afraid of him … of him, a man who had loved her all of his life? Had he changed that much?
He couldn’t let her hurry off; she would head for the road out of town. One of her aunts had told him that Adele wasn’t as strong as she imagined herself to be – that she needed to rest during the day. Brackenhurst was too far for her to walk after her illness, especially at the pace she often adopted. She would tire and dusk would overtake her.
He’d been cruel. He’d make it up to her.
How?
He didn’t know.
He took her gently by the arm. ‘Del … I didn’t mean it.’
‘I know.’
‘Let’s start again … forget the past.’
She turned, the helplessness in her eyes all too apparent. ‘We can’t, Ryder. We’re different people now. You’ve been a soldier and I’ve …’
‘And you have disappointed me.’ He waited, watching the struggle going on inside her. Didn’t she know by now that she could trust him with anything?
‘There’s that, but I’ve also changed. Things have happened that shouldn’t have, and we can’t go back and pretend they didn’t.’
‘Perhaps we could go forward and forget that they did. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hating you.’
‘Do you hate me?’
‘Sometimes I do, and it’s justified. Did you mean it when you told me you didn’t wed Edgar Pelham?’
Her alarm intensified and she began to resemble a trapped mouse. He took the basket from her arm. ‘Why are you trembling?’
‘Because … I don’t know. It’s because I’ve been ill and I’m tired.’
‘Not too tired to try and walk home, I noticed. You’re frightened of me, and I don’t like it. What did you mean when you indicated there had never been another man?’
She fussed with her gloves and said nothing.
‘Edgar Pelham
hurt you, didn’t he?’
Her eyes came up to his, large and anxious. Still she said nothing.
‘He’s dead, and he can’t do you any harm now. It’s not as if he’s going to come up out of the sea and strangle you.’
‘Sometimes I dream that he does, and I wake and I can’t get back to sleep in case the dream comes back. I don’t want to talk about him.’
He gave her a considered glance. ‘You do look tired. Let’s go and get your livestock shopping done. I’ve found you a pretty little jenny with nice manners. It will be my homecoming gift if you like her. She answers to the name of Daisy.’
Her lips pursed a little, as if she were trying not to laugh. ‘What does Daisy say when she answers?’
He wanted to say that he loved her … that he forgave her, but every time he thought of it his pain came rushing back. He could no longer expose his heart to her gaze or trust her with his soul in case she crushed them, as she had before.
When he didn’t answer she put some distance between them. ‘We’re being watched.’
‘By the whole town, I would imagine.’
‘Almost correct since it’s Mrs Bryson.’
‘She wouldn’t have seen us through the wagon, besides the distance is too far for her to see clearly. I’ve heard her described as the unofficial town tattler.’
The little ripple of laughter she gave told him their spat was over, at least, for the present. ‘She must have caught a glimpse because she’s watching us out of the dressmaker’s window.’
He decided to entertain her. ‘Ah … a den of iniquity, indeed. I spent an unfortunate half hour there with your young companion. Miss Pelham displayed admirable fortitude to walk into that lair of cats and emerge intact. We both did.’
‘Sarah is a sensible girl. She rarely loses her temper and is clever in many ways.’
‘She stamps a fine foot when she needs to. I like her.’
