With This Ring

by Celeste Bradley

  Aaron slid his arm beneath her head and rested his cheek on the silky pile of her hair, which in typical Elektra fashion had taken up more than its share of the blanket. He smiled in sleepy desire to fight her for the blankets for the rest of his life.

  He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet damp scent of satisfied Elektra. Fine. He was a dead man. But what a way to go.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Aaron stretched languidly. His feet came to the end of the covers and emerged into the chill air. He shivered, his eyes still closed, and pulled them back in. The bed was a bit short.

  The bed was also a bit hard. Actually, it was as unforgiving as a marble floor!

  The marble floor of the temple folly …

  Folly. Blankets.

  Elektra.

  He reached a sleepy hand to one side. She was so beautiful, so soft and giving, so fiery and passionate—

  She was not there. Aaron opened his eyes, blinking and squinting against the morning sun pouring into the many windows of the folly. Bright sun, blinding white marble, and a single graceful shape in pale green standing in the open doorway, looking out.

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Alarm shot through him. Aaron stumbled to his feet, realized his nakedness and grabbed up his trousers. Donning them quickly, he joined her at the door while shoving his arms into his shirtsleeves. “Who is it?”

  The road stretched out beyond and below them. They could see for a mile in either direction. Alone on the road, approaching the way they themselves had come, a lone rider trotted a weary horse.

  Elektra tilted her head. “That isn’t one of my brothers. He’s too fair to be Zander or Orion and too thin to be Dade or Cas.”

  Aaron smiled down at her. “Not every rider to come our way is going to be a Worthington.”

  She slid him a playfully sour glance. “They have been so far.”

  He chuckled. “Fair point.”

  The distraction of her golden hair flowing down her back, shimmering corn silk in the morning light, dragged at his attention. Her lovely pale skin, like alabaster by candlelight, like finest ivory by day, made him want to run his hand over her cheek, down her graceful throat, into her bodice—

  “He has seen us.”

  Ahem. Right. Even after the passion of the night before, Aaron had no idea how Elektra would respond to his touch. Turning back to the view of the road, he beat his lust into submission and tried to focus his vision on the rider.

  The horseman had kicked his horse into a gallop. The pale oval of his face beneath his hat definitely appeared to be turned in their direction. Aaron tilted his head, thinking idly that there was something familiar about that lean stature.

  “I don’t think I know him,” Elektra mused aloud. “Although he seems to know us—and to be in a distinct hurry to reach us!” The rider had turned off the road and was urging his mount up the hill toward the folly.

  Suddenly Aaron knew where he’d seen that person before. His last view of Carter Masterson had been when the young man had been pounding the pride out of him at the ball. One didn’t soon forget an encounter like that.

  Aaron backed into the shadow of the doorway, tugging gently at Elektra’s hand. “My sweet, would you please put on your shoes? No, don’t bother with the blankets. We need to leave. Now.”

  Elektra didn’t question him, thank heaven. She scurried to her things and pulled her shoes on, then stuffed her arms into her spencer. As he tugged his own boots on, Aaron spared a moment to wonder how many times the Worthingtons had needed to move along at a moment’s notice.

  They were too late. A shadow stepped into the open archway. “Lord Aaron!”

  Aaron pushed Elektra behind him when he saw the pistol in Carter’s hand.

  “That’s mine!” Elektra hissed from behind Aaron’s back, and he saw that it was indeed. I left it with Lard-Arse’s tack, like a fool. Just a little harvest-fair prize for an intruder!

  “Shh!” He positioned Elektra directly behind him. If Carter fired, the old pistol would not have enough kick to send a ball through him to strike her … he hoped.

  “Help!” Elektra squeaked. “Save me!”

  “I’m trying to save you,” he muttered over his shoulder. “Hush!”

  Carter raised the pistol. “Get away from her, you rotter!”

  Aaron went very still. He could see Carter’s hand shaking from nerves strung too tightly. The idiot could fire at any time without even meaning to.

  Elektra drifted away from Aaron. He saw a flutter of mint green from the corner of his eye. What the hell was she doing?

  She staggered to a point halfway between Carter and Aaron, very nearly in the line of fire. Then she halted and, unbelievably, pressed the back of one hand upon her forehead in a ladylike cue to faint.

  It worked, by God. Carter lowered the pistol long enough to lunge forward to catch her. His inbuilt gallantry, finely honed by a probable lifetime of romantic music and lurid novels, proved more than he could resist.

  Elektra delivered a stellar performance, timing her faint to perfection, draping herself across his rescuing arm as if it were a move rehearsed a hundred times. Knowing her, she had probably practiced on her brothers. In a mirror.

  Since a gentleman did not hold a pistol like a brigand in one hand and a fainting lady in the other, Carter was seemingly unable to retain his aim on Aaron.

  So far so good. Aaron decided to stay very still and follow Elektra’s lead. “She’s mine,” he growled with what he considered to be the perfect level of insane lust.

  From where she remained artistically blocking Carter’s ability to aim, Elektra rolled her eyes at him.

  Aaron blinked. Too much?

  She shut her eyes briefly and shook her head fractionally. Putrid. Really.

  “Miss Worthington, have you been harmed?” Carter held the pistol straight out to one side, but Aaron was too far to rush him before the man could repair his aim and fire.

  “Miss Worthington?”

  Elektra inhaled deeply, then opened her eyes to flutter her lashes dramatically at Carter. “Oh, I had the most awful dream—” Then, realizing that her dream was indeed true, she shrieked appealingly and turned to cower in Carter’s hold. “Oh! Oh, we must flee! You must take me away from that terrible, dreadful man!”

  Aaron fought to keep his expression from souring and continued to project a bestial leer. Take care not to run out of synonyms, my love. He’d been Black Aaron for far too long. He didn’t care to play this part any longer.

  “What have you done to her?” Carter gazed at Aaron with the purest hatred. “Bastard! Blackguard! Scoundrel!”

  Aaron gritted his jaw. We have moved into nouns.

  “I knew you were up to no good! What other reason could you have for returning to England but to despoil more virtuous women?”

  Well, I had worked my way through every female in the Bahamas …

  Unfortunately, Aaron could not bring himself to mock Carter. Although Carter was an idiot, he was a righteous idiot. The young man had every reason to want retribution for his sister’s senseless death.

  “How—” Elektra clung to Carter, her voice wispy with distressed innocence. “How did you find me?”

  Carter sneered. “I watched him stealing away from your house in London. I was on my way to warn your brothers, you see. I had no idea you were not safely within your home, so I followed his ugly horse for miles.” Outrage took over Carter’s expression. “Then I saw him steal you directly off your own carriage!”

  Elektra could barely breathe with the stranger’s arm wrapped about her ribs. She needed to think, quickly!

  First of all, who was this idiot? Aaron seemed to know him. So who would hate Aaron so much he would feel compelled to follow him halfway across England?

  Well, Black Aaron had killed Amelia Masterson—according to gossip!—so this must be a Masterson. Brother, probably. Younger, definitely.

  She twisted a bit, trying to expand her lungs. He gri
pped her more tightly to his side. “Don’t worry, Miss Worthington. I have you. I will take care of you. I fear I cannot undo what this maniac has wrought, but I will repair your reputation as well as I can. We will ride directly to Gretna Green. I traded for a fresh horse just this morning. I calculate we can be married by supper!”

  Elektra panicked. Marvelous. Everyone wants to marry me—except the one man I wish would ask! “But, sir—we do not have a ring!” She heard a strangled noise from Aaron’s general direction.

  “Furthermore, this morning I posted a letter to the Earl of Arbodean about your activities! That will fix you, you bastard! I would kill you myself right now, but I would not deprive Miss Worthington’s brothers of their right to vengeance!”

  “Oh!” Elektra fluttered her lashes at young Mr. Masterson a bit more. He did not seem tired of it yet. “I long to see my dear brothers! Please, let us go from here! Leave him behind—my brothers will see to his dastardly hide!”

  Mr. Masterson gazed down at her. “Yes, you have been through too much. However, we must assure that he does not follow us.”

  “Tie him!” Don’t sound too eager. “If you think it would be best, of course.” Flutter.

  “I haven’t any rope.”

  Heaven help her. How had he survived to his twentieth year all by himself? So this is how it feels! Trying to talk sense to him must be what it’s like for an ordinary person to talk to a Worthington!

  She pasted a worshipful expression on her face. Flutter. “Rope? Oh, you are brilliant, sir! The rope he tied his horse with, of course!”

  Mr. Masterson looked torn. She could almost see the gears turning slowly in his head. Very. Slowly.

  Elektra filled in the blanks for him. “Yes, I will fetch it for you. Anything for you, my rescuer!”

  She slipped out of his arm before he could wrench her back and scuttled to the exit. Once outside, it was a simple matter to set Lard-Arse free and return with the rope.

  “Miss Worthington, you must hold the pistol upon him while I bind him.”

  Elektra staggered backward, etching a horrified expression on herself. “Oh, I could never touch that awful thing!” She took the rope from him quickly. “I shall tie him while you protect me. I know you would never let him hurt me!” Flutter.

  She tied Aaron very well indeed, using miles of rope and creating large unwieldy knots that would convince Mr. Masterson even at a distance. It wouldn’t do for these two to get within arm’s length of each other.

  Poor Aaron was at his breaking point, she could see. Alarm for her, fury at his helplessness, and just plain anger at Mr. Masterson’s assumptions called up storm clouds in those gray eyes.

  She reassured him with a squeeze of his fingers when she was sure Mr. Masterson couldn’t see, then finished tying him. She tried not to look too practiced and efficient, but she also wanted to get this idiot as far away as she could from Aaron before something detonated!

  Returning to Mr. Masterson, she shyly took his unarmed hand. “Please, let us leave this horrible place.” Flutter-flutter. “He is bound and his horse is gone. He cannot follow us now!”

  If she could get him on the road, she was sure she could extricate herself from his presence quite easily. She managed to get him as far as the open archway. Unfortunately, Aaron rushed matters just a bit. Men! Before she could stop him, he burst from the folly to fling himself bodily upon Mr. Masterson.

  That was the trouble with the trick knot. It was simply too easy to get free of, once one had learned the way of it!

  * * *

  Elektra gazed down at the bound and furious Mr. Masterson. This time her knots were unassailable.

  She folded her arms in exasperation. “He’s so earnest and noble. How exhausting!”

  Aaron glanced at her. “I didn’t realize you knew Carter Masterson.”

  “I don’t. I simply recognized the species. I believe it is Gullible idiotis.” She rolled her eyes. “Easily identified by total lack of humor and immunity to irony. Natural predators include Castor and Pollux Worthington—and anyone else with a brain and an agenda. Spare me, please.”

  Aaron gazed down at Carter, who nursed a black eye and a decidedly resentful humor. “It isn’t his fault. He’s hardly more than a boy.”

  “He must be twenty at least!”

  “Twenty-two,” Carter muttered bitterly.

  “There, you see what I mean?”

  Elektra and Aaron spoke simultaneously. Aaron stared at Elektra. “So … how old are you?”

  She tossed her head. “Nineteen. Why, how old are you?”

  He rubbed his face. “Mumble-mumble.”

  Unfortunately, Elektra was fluent in Mumble—probably due to close association with those five miscreant brothers. She gaped at him. “You’re thirty-four?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  She blinked. “Ah. Well, no. It is only that Archie is precisely fifteen years older than Iris. And … they wed when she was nineteen.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She shook her head quickly. “Nothing. A coincidence, I’m sure.”

  Aaron felt a strange tingling sensation on the back of his neck, the sort of feeling one gets when being watched—or being conspired against!

  Carter lifted his head. “If you two are finished comparing birthdays, I think you should either untie me or kill me, for you both sicken me!”

  Elektra scowled at Carter. “Pardon me, but we were happily minding our own business when you insisted on inviting yourself in.”

  “Happily?” Carter sneered. “He doesn’t deserve happiness! Amy deserved happiness! He deserves to be lying cold in the ground, not her!”

  Elektra knelt beside him and put her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I forgot about your poor sister for a moment.” She was enraged at Carter but also heartbroken for him. She knew what it meant to watch one’s family fall apart.

  However, he was far too mired in the past. Instead of enjoying his own careless youth, he remained obsessed with his own helplessness while his sister crumbled, too young at the time to help her, too young to challenge Aaron to a duel, too ignorant to help his parents survive the tragedy.

  Mired in the past? Does that sound familiar?

  Elektra tried to shut that thought away. She was entirely focused on the future.

  Really? While wearing the key to a moldering ruin about your neck?

  Carter pulled away from her touch. She looked up at Aaron, biting her lower lip. “Can’t you—?”

  “No,” he interrupted her. Then, because Carter’s pain was so obviously raw, “I wish I could, but it would only cause more pain.”

  “More pain?” Carter turned his hate-filled gaze upon Aaron. “Do you know what you did to me? To my entire family?”

  Elektra reached to comfort him again. He scuttled violently away from her hand.

  “You are a fool to trust in him,” he snarled to her. “He’ll only betray you, too!” He pointed out the door with his chin. “Go, look in my saddlebag! I was bringing my sister’s diary to prove this bastard’s worthlessness to your family. Read it! You’ll see his relentless, heartless seduction and his vicious attack on her innocent heart!”

  Elektra glanced at Aaron. “Hmm.”

  Aaron narrowed his eyes. “Elektra,” he warned.

  She raised a brow. “Do not take a tone with me, my lord. I will read what I like.”

  In moments she had the leather-bound journal in her hands. Poor Amy Masterson’s diary had only a few weeks of entries. Elektra supposed the girl had never had a secret before in her life—until she met a handsome, flirtatious fellow at a ball.

  Furious, Aaron stalked from the folly. He couldn’t bear to watch Elektra read Amy’s words. Would they contradict his tale? He thought they must, if Carter Masterson had read it and still believed in Aaron’s sins.

  Although he’d spent the night in her arms, Aaron still wasn’t completely sure how Elektra felt about him. She spoke nothing of love. Didn’t women speak
endlessly of love?

  Damn it, she had finagled her way into his lonely, dark heart, his mind, and his soul. He could not bear to see her turn away now!

  Would she keep faith in him, even in the face of Amelia’s words? Would she join the world in its poor opinion of him?

  In the end, who would Elektra believe?

  * * *

  Elektra read quickly but carefully. Once, when Carter Masterson began to speak to her, she held a finger absently to her lips. “Hush!”

  He actually obeyed her. It was refreshing, that’s what it was.

  The pages were full of a young woman’s fancies come to life. The moment she had met “Him.” Their first kiss, the description of which caught at Elektra’s heart. She firmly squelched her own romantic flight of fancy to continue reading.

  Amelia and “Him,” making love for the first time. Elektra swallowed hard, reading the diary’s frank description. She could not rationally feel superior to “silly” Amelia any longer. She now knew the pull of male to female, the bond of heated kisses and tender touch, the wild sensation of skin to naked skin, the way a man’s body fit into hers.

  Then came Amelia’s realization of her lover’s failings—her disillusionment, tangled with the love she still felt, confused by her passion and jealousy. She’d been shattered—entirely devastated by “His” desertion.

  Finally, Elektra reached the last entry, the final words of Amelia Masterson.

  Lord Aaron came to me today. His lordship’s words left me cold, my heart frozen and alone, my life an interminable winter.

  The winter must end. I must convince Lord Aaron that I am willing to end it.

  I must sleep.

  The girl’s words left Elektra chilled and aching herself. She could see how Amelia’s family must have interpreted the final sentence.

  However, if one read it with the knowledge of Aaron’s conversation with Amelia on her last day, one realized that the dire-sounding “I must sleep” meant precisely that. They were the words of a girl exhausted by her grief, who recognized that she was weary beyond the ability to make reasonable decisions.