Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 1 of 2

by Carla Kelly

  Her body shifted in his arms as she gave the sort of sigh that needed a lungful of air. She was probably mortified at being carried by a man, but if she wouldn’t go back into the convent then there wasn’t much option. He made another valiant, and unfamiliar, effort not to notice the feminine curves pressed against his body. He wasn’t used to getting this close to women unless they both intended to take things considerably further.

  ‘Teresa—’

  ‘Sister Teresa.’ Of course, nuns were named for saints, weren’t they? ‘Excellent. Here we are.’ The lights of Les Quatre Éléments glowed though the gathering dusk and he headed for them like a mariner spying a safe, familiar harbour.

  ‘An inn? Lord Wey—’

  ‘A very respectable inn,’ Alex assured her as he shouldered through the front door into the light and heat and bustle of a well-run hostelry. ‘Gaston!’

  ‘Milord Weybourn.’ The innkeeper came hurrying out of the back. ‘How good to see you again, milord. The other gentlemen are in your usual private parlour.’

  ‘Thank you, Gaston.’ Alex headed for the door on the right. ‘And some tea? Coffee? What would you like, Sister Teresa?’

  ‘Gentlemen? Private parlour? Lord Weybourn, put me down this—’

  ‘Tea,’ he ordered for her. Tea was soothing, wasn’t it? His little nun needed soothing; she was beginning to wriggle in agitation like a ruffled hen and, hell, if she didn’t stop she wasn’t the only one who’d need it. Soothing, that was, not tea. He really needed a woman. How long had it been? A month? That was far too long.

  Alex kicked the door closed behind him and leaned back against it for a moment while he sought for his usual composure. Nuns apparently did not wear corsets. The discovery was seriously unsettling. The soft weight of a small breast against his forearm was damnably unsettling. He was reacting like a green youth and he didn’t like the feeling.

  ‘My dear Alex, why the drama?’ Crispin de Feaux lowered the document he was studying, stood up and regarded the scene in the doorway with cool detachment. Possibly if he had erupted into the room pursued by sword-wielding soldiery Cris might have revealed some emotion, but Alex rather doubted it. ‘Have you taken to abducting nuns?’

  ‘Nuns? Surely not?’ Over by the fireplace Grant Rivers swung his boots down from the fender and stood, too, dragging one hand through his hair. Characteristically he looked responsible and concerned.

  ‘What do you bet?’ Gabriel Stone dropped a handful of dice with a clatter and lounged to his feet. ‘Although it hardly seems Alex’s style. High-fliers, now...’

  Alex narrowed his eyes, daring him to continue stripping her with that insolent gaze. Gabe grinned and slumped back into his chair.

  ‘I slipped on the ice and knocked Sister Teresa to the ground, injuring her ankle in the process.’ Alex pushed away from the door and carried his burden over to the settle by the fire. ‘I thought you should check it for her, Grant.’

  * * *

  ‘There you are, Sister Teresa, you’re in safe hands now and tea is on the way.’ The infuriating creature deposited Tess on the settee opposite the handsome brown-haired man and sketched a bow. ‘This is Grantham Rivers, a very handy man with a sprained ankle.’ She caught the grin Lord Weybourn sent the doctor and the doctor’s eye roll in return as his friend turned on his heel and sauntered over to the other two men.

  ‘I am not—’

  ‘A nun. I know.’ The doctor sat down. He was polite, but didn’t seem too happy. ‘Unlike Alex, I know that nuns wear wimples and do not trot around the streets alone.’

  ‘Do none of you allow a woman to finish a sentence?’ Tess demanded. She had gone beyond miserable since her interview with Mother Superior a week ago had knocked all her certainties into utter chaos. She’d forced herself into the same state of stoical, unhappy acceptance that had kept her sane, somehow, all those years ago when Mama and Papa had died. Now the shock of being hurled off her feet had sent her into an unfamiliar mood of irritation.

  Or possibly this was the effect men had on women all the time. As her association with the creatures since the age of thirteen had been limited to the priest, an aged gardener and occasional encounters with tradesmen, this could well be the case. For the first time in her life celibacy began to sound appealing. But now she was alone with four of them, although they seemed safe enough, sober and respectful.

  ‘Normally, yes, we have much better manners. Alex is doubtless disconcerted at his very unusual clumsiness in felling you to the ground, but I have no excuse. How should I address you, ma’am?’

  ‘Miss Ellery. Tess Ellery, Doctor.’

  ‘Not doctor. Plain Mr Grantham Rivers. But I almost completed my medical training at Edinburgh, so I am quite safe to be let loose on minor injuries, Miss Ellery.’ He regarded her as she sat there looking, she had no doubt, like a somewhat battered crow. ‘May I take your cloak and bonnet? I will need you to remove your shoe and stocking so I can examine your ankle. Shall I send for a maid to attend you?’

  He looked serious and respectable. Considering that she had not shed so much as a glove in male company for years, Tess wondered why she was not more flustered. Perhaps being knocked to the ground and then carried by a tall, strong, over-masterful aristocrat might have reduced her capacity for flusterment. Was that a word? More likely the fact that her world was so out of kilter accounted for it.

  ‘Miss Ellery?’ Mr Rivers was waiting patiently. She searched for normal courtesy and some poise, found a smile and felt it freeze on her lips as she met his eyes. He had the saddest eyes she had ever seen. It was like gazing into the hell of someone’s private grief, and staring felt as intrusive and unmannerly as gawping at mourners at a funeral.

  ‘No, no maid. I can manage, thank you.’ Tess made a business of her bonnet ribbon and cloak clasp and murmured her thanks. He laid the garments at the end of the settle, then went to stand with his back to her, shielding her from the room as she managed her laces and untied her garter to roll down her stocking. ‘I cannot get my boot off.’

  ‘The ankle is swelling.’ Mr Rivers came and knelt down in front of her. ‘Let me see if I can remove it without cutting the leather.’

  ‘Please.’ They were her only pair of boots.

  ‘Have you any other injuries?’ He bent over her foot, working the boot off with gentle wiggles. ‘You didn’t bang your head, or put out your hand and hurt your wrist?’

  ‘No, only my ankle. It turned over as I fell.’ Removing the boot hurt, despite his care, so Tess looked over his head at the other three men for distraction. Such a strange quartet. Mr Rivers with his tragic eyes, gentle hands and handsome profile. Her rescuer, Lord Weybourn, tall, elegant and relaxed. Deceptively relaxed, given the ease with which he had lifted and carried her. The blond icicle who looked like a cross between an archangel and a hanging judge and the lounging dice player who seemed more suited to a hedge tavern frequented by footpads than a respectable inn in the company of gentlemen.

  Yes, an unlikely combination of friends and yet they were so easy together. Like brothers, she supposed. Family.

  Lord Weybourn met her gaze and lifted one slanting eyebrow.

  ‘Ah, that made you jump, sorry.’ Mr Rivers’s fingers were probing and flexing. ‘Tell me where it hurts. Here? When I do this? Can you wriggle your toes? Excellent. And point your foot? No, stop if it is painful.’

  He certainly seemed to know what he was doing. He would bind it up for her and Lord Weybourn must find her some conveyance, given that the collision was all his fault and she wouldn’t be able to get her boot laced again over a bandage. None of these men were behaving in a way that made her uneasy. There were no leers or winks, no suggestive remarks. Tess relaxed a little more and decided she could trust her judgement that she was safe here.

  His lordship was half sitting on the edge of the table, laughing at
something the dice player had said. Now he had shed his hat and greatcoat she could see that the impression of elegance could be applied to his clothing as much as to his manner. Ten years in a nunnery did not do much for her appreciation of male fashion, but even she could see that what he wore had been crafted from expensive fabrics by a master who could sculpt fabric around broad shoulders and long, muscular legs, and that whoever looked after his linen was a perfectionist.

  Unlike his friends, the viscount wasn’t conventionally good looking, Tess thought critically as Mr Rivers rested her foot on a stool and stood up, murmuring about cold compresses and bandages. Mr Rivers was the image of the perfect English gentleman: strong bones, straight nose, thick, glossy dark brown hair and those tragic, beautiful green eyes. The blond icicle belonged in a church’s stained-glass window, giving impressionable girls in the congregation palpitations of mixed desire and terror at the thought of his blue eyes turning on them or that sculpted mouth opening on some killing rebuke. Even the dice player with his shock of black hair, insolent gypsy-dark eyes and broad shoulders had the attractiveness of a male animal in its prime.

  But Lord Weybourn was different. Very masculine, of course... Oh, yes. She gave a little shiver as she recalled how easily he had lifted and carried her. And he had a touch of something dangerously other-worldly about him. His hair was dark blond, his nose was thin, his cheekbones pronounced. His eyes, under winging dark brows, were, she guessed, hazel and his chin was firm.

  It was his mouth, she decided, focusing on that feature. It was mobile and kept drifting upwards into a half smile as though his thoughts were pleasant, but mysterious and, in some way, dangerous. In fact, she decided, he looked like a particularly well-dressed supernatural creature, if such things ever reached a good six feet in height with shoulders in proportion—one who ruled over forests where the shadows were dark and wolves lurked...

  He glanced across at her again and stood up, which snapped her out of musings that probably had something to do with Sister Moira’s frisson-inducing tales of Gothic terror, told at recreation time when Mother Superior was not listening. Only Sister Moira’s fantasy beings never provoked feelings of...

  ‘Is Rivers hurting you?’ Lord Weybourn came over and hitched himself onto the table opposite. His boots were beautiful, she thought, watching one swinging idly to and fro. It was safer than meeting his gaze. ‘I haven’t managed to break your ankle, have I?’

  ‘No, you haven’t, fortunately.’ Mr Rivers came back and hunkered down by her feet. ‘This will be cold,’ he warned as he draped a dripping cloth over her ankle. ‘I’ll bandage it up after you’ve had your tea and a rest.’

  ‘This seems a very pleasant inn,’ she said for want of a neutral topic. Conversation with men was a novelty. ‘Do you use this place frequently?’

  ‘From a long way back,’ Lord Weybourn said. ‘Even when the war was on some of us would slip in and out in various guises. Very handy, Les Quatre Éléments.’ He grinned. ‘We called ourselves the Four Elementals as our names fit so well.’

  ‘Elementals? I know the four elements—air, water, fire and earth. So which are you?’

  ‘Alex Tempest—air.’

  ‘So you are water, Mr Rivers? That works well with your soothing medical skills.’

  He gave a half bow in acknowledgement. ‘Cris is de Feaux, hence the French feu for fire.’

  ‘Of course.’ She could easily imagine the blond icicle as an archangel with a burning sword. ‘And earth?’

  ‘Gabriel Stone is nothing if not earthy.’ Lord Weybourn titled his head towards the dice player, who was playing left hand against right hand, dark brows lowered in a scowl of concentration.

  Mr Rivers changed the cold cloth on her ankle again. Tess smiled her thanks, then forgot both injury and elements as a maid deposited a laden tray on the settle beside her. Tea, she had expected, but not pastries dripping with honey, little cakes and dainty iced biscuits. Lord Weybourn stole a biscuit and went back to the others.

  ‘I should—’

  ‘Eat up. Sorry,’ Grant Rivers said. ‘Interrupting you again.’

  ‘I fear I will not know when to stop.’ Vegetable soup and wholemeal bread had made a warming midday meal, but they had tasted, as always, of practical, frugal worthiness and sat lumpily on a stomach fluttering with nerves. There was nothing worthy about the plate beside her. Mr Rivers simply nodded and strolled off to join his friends, leaving her to sip her tea—with sugar!—while she contemplated the temptation. Perhaps just one of each? To leave them untouched would be discourteous.

  * * *

  Half an hour later Tess licked her fingers, feeling slightly, deliciously queasy as she contemplated a plate empty of all but crumbs and a smear of cream.

  Mr Rivers strolled back and shifted the tray without so much as a smirk or a frown for her greed. ‘I’ll strap up your ankle now. Let’s put this blanket over your knees and you can take a nap when I’m done. You were chilled and a little bit shocked, I suspect. A rest will do no harm.’

  He was almost a doctor, he knew what he was talking about and she supposed there was no great hurry, provided she was with Sister Clare for the evening meal. And this was...interesting. Watching men, relaxed and friendly together, was interesting. Being warm and full of delicious sweets was indulgent. A mild sensation of naughtiness, of playing truant, was definitely intriguing. She knew she shouldn’t be here, but they all seemed so...harmless? Wrong word. Perhaps it was her innocence deceiving her...

  Tess blinked, on the verge of a yawn. Last night had been cold and her head too full of churning thoughts, hopes and worries for her to sleep much. Mr Rivers was right—a little nap would set her up for an evening of doling out stew to humble travellers who would otherwise be huddled in their cloaks on benches for the night. Then she would have to try to sleep on a hard bed in a chilly cell alongside Sister Clare’s notorious snores before an even chillier dawn start. Sister Moira always said those snores counted as a penance in themselves, so they would be enough to pay for the consumption of a plate of pastries, Tess decided, as she snugged down in the corner of the settle and let the men’s voices and laughter wash over her. Just a little nap.

  * * *

  ‘Mmm?’ Citrus cologne, starched linen... She was being lifted again by Lord Weybourn. It seemed natural to turn her head into his shoulder, inhale the interesting masculine scent of him.

  ‘You will get a crick in your neck in that corner, little nun. And we’re becoming noisy. There’s a nice quiet room just here, you can rest.’

  That sounded so good. ‘Sister Clare...’

  ‘I remember. Sister Clare, down at the canal dock. Boat to Ostend in the morning.’

  What is all this nonsense the sisters tell us about men? Anyone would think they were all ravening beasts... These four are kind and reliable and safe. And the mattress was soft when he laid her down and the covers so warm and light. ‘Thank you,’ Tess murmured as she drifted off again.

  ‘My pleasure, little nun.’ Then the door closed and all was quiet.

  Chapter Two

  Tess swum up out of sleep, deliciously warm and with a definite need for the chamber pot. Too much tea. ‘Ouch!’ Her ankle gave a stab of pain as she hopped across to the screen in the corner, made herself comfortable and then hopped back. It was still light, so she could not have slept long. In fact, it was very light. She pulled aside the curtain and stared out at a corner of the inn yard with a maid bustling past with a basket of laundry and a stable boy lugging a bucket of water. It was unmistakably morning.

  She hobbled to the door, flung it open. The four men were still around the table. The dice player and the blond icicle were playing cards with the air of gamblers who could continue for another twelve hours if necessary. Mr Rivers was pouring ale into a tankard with one hand while holding a bread roll bulging with ham in the other. And
Lord Weybourn, who she now realised was the most unreliable, infuriating man—regardless of her pulse quickening simply at the sight of him—was fast asleep, his chair tipped on its back legs against a pillar, his booted feet on the table amidst a litter of playing cards.

  The fact that he was managing to sleep without snoring, with his mouth mostly closed and his clothing unrumpled, only added fuel to the fire.

  ‘Lord Weybourn!’

  ‘Humph?’ He jerked awake and Tess winced at the thump his head made against the pillar. ‘Ouch.’

  The other men stood up. ‘Miss Ellery. Good morning. Did you sleep well?’ Mr Rivers asked.

  ‘I told him. I told him I had to be down at the canal port. I told him the boat left very early this morning.’ She jerked her head towards Lord Weybourn, too cross to look at him.

  ‘It is early morning.’ He got to his feet and she could not help but notice that he did not look as though he had slept in his clothes. He was as sleek and self-possessed as a panther. What she looked like she shuddered to think.

  Tess batted an errant lock of hair out of her eyes. ‘What time is it?’

  The blond icicle glanced at the mantelshelf clock. ‘Just past nine.’

  ‘That isn’t early, that is almost half the morning gone.’ Tess hopped to the nearest chair and sat down. ‘I have missed the boat.’

  ‘You can buy a ticket on the next one. They are frequent enough,’ the viscount said, stealing Mr Rivers’s unguarded tankard. The ale slid down in a long swallow, making his Adam’s apple move. His neck was strapped with muscle.

  ‘I do not have any money,’ Tess said through gritted teeth, averting her eyes from so much blatant masculinity. If she knew any swear words this would be an excellent opportunity to use them. But she did not. Strange that she had never felt the lack before. ‘I have a ticket for the boat that left at four o’clock. It arrives in Ostend with just enough time to catch the ship across the Channel. The ship that I have another ticket for. I have tickets, useless tickets. I have no money and I cannot go back to the convent and ask for more. I cannot afford to repay it,’ she added bleakly.