Night Fire

by Catherine Coulter

  “My only other choice was to follow you to America. I didn’t want to take that chance. The two countries are still at war. I didn’t want to take any risks with your safety.”

  She could only stare at him. “To save me you abducted me?”

  “That’s about it, I expect.”

  Suddenly, without warning, Arielle saw herself as she had been three years before, her heart in her eyes as she’d looked upon this magnificent hero who’d been, remarkably, aware of her. She was hearing his deep voice, teasing, gentle, mocking—when it suited him. Just as he was now. Arielle shook her head at herself. That girl might as well be on another continent, another world. She no longer existed, the stupid little fool. But what about Burke? She’d been scared to contemplate that he truly had been interested in her; after all, a perfect god such as he caring about a silly girl? Still, she’d nurtured every romantic fantasy about him until her father had died so suddenly that bright fall afternoon.

  Then she had learned to grieve. Then she had been married off to Paisley Cochrane and learned the truth of things.

  And the truth was that men used women just as they used their horses or their dogs or their servants. They used them because they were the stronger. She said abruptly, “Do you really have a mistress?”

  “Yes, but as soon as we’re married, I won’t. Actually, since I have no intention of ever letting you out of my sight again, I think I’m now disqualified from having a mistress any longer.”

  Because I will do all the things to him that she does now.

  Perhaps if he kept his mistress, then he would leave her alone more often than not. “What is her name?” she asked, deciding to back into this argument, doing her best to be subtle.

  “Laura.” He cocked his head at her. “Why the devil do you want to know that?”

  She shrugged. “It is a nice name. It would seem to me that you would want to keep her rather than leave her.”

  Burke couldn’t quite believe this conversation. Arielle seemed perfectly serious. It was something of a blow to his self-image, no doubt about that. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I don’t believe that a married man should be disloyal or unfaithful to his wife.”

  That was something she couldn’t grasp. That girl from three years ago could have, but not Arielle Leslie Cochrane, Lady Rendel. “I cannot see that it is at all important or has any bearing on anything.”

  “You mean that you would have no compunction, were you my wife, to taking a lover?”

  She laughed at that. It was so utterly ludicrous a proposition. She choked. “A lover?”

  “Does that mean you would or you wouldn’t?”

  She shook her head, laughter still bubbling in her throat.

  “This is a very strange conversation we’re having, Arielle. Will you wed me?”

  She stopped laughing. She looked at him, not at all fooled by his negligent presentation, and was afraid to say no again. Surely his man’s rules had to veer off into violence quite soon now; they simply had to. “I—I don’t know. I would ask you for some time to think about it.”

  “That’s a start,” Burke said, smiling at her.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. She’d said the right thing. His temper was still in place. She rose very slowly, half expecting to be jerked back down, but he didn’t touch her. “I think I should like a nap now.”

  “You won’t jump out the window, will you?”

  “No, I shan’t.”

  But she was thinking about knotted sheets.

  “Oh, my dear, another trifling matter. Money. I took your hundred pounds. If you do manage to get to the ground intact, without me there beneath you, you will find yourself quite without any means of going anywhere.”

  She whirled about on a cry. “No. You had no right to steal my money. God, I hate you.” She got the door open this time and dashed upstairs.

  Burke didn’t move. She’d been going to escape him, or try. He should simply let her go, the objective man said. But he couldn’t. He firmly believed that he could make her love him. He had to believe it or truly go mad. He rose and left the drawing room. He would give her a few minutes—not enough to knot any sheets together—then fetch her. He would simply have to keep her in the master bedchamber. The windows were long and narrow, too narrow even for her to squeeze through.

  He didn’t imagine that she would like that at all.

  It was just too bad. He walked slowly up the stairs, picturing her on his bed, her clothing magically strewn on the floor, her—

  He frowned at himself and turned his mind from that delightful image. He thought about the conversation in the drawing room, if one could call that disjointed chaos a conversation. Her behavior was inexplicable to him. Cowering one minute, defiant the next. It made no sense to him. He would come to understand her and she him. He would not swerve from his course. He couldn’t. Was she lying? Was she still grieving for her husband? No, he didn’t think so. Something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t simply her alarming aversion to him. Ah, well, he had all the time in the world to discover every thought in her head.

  He considered the evening ahead. She wasn’t going to like it at all.

  “That is just too bad,” he said aloud to one of the time-darkened portraits that hung on the wall at the landing. “I’m doing what is best for both of us.”

  Eight

  It was dark early because of the storm. Arielle was sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, looking blankly toward the windows. Rain pounded against the glass. Damp seeped into the room. She vigorously rubbed her arms, thinking that even if she had had sheets to knot, she couldn’t escape on a night like this. Arielle sighed and wondered what the devil she was going to do. She didn’t really want to sleep on the raw mattress. Burke had followed her upstairs, come into her chamber, and stripped the sheets off the bed. He’d only smiled at her, saying nothing.

  She heard his footsteps in the corridor and rose, tensing a bit. The single candle she’d lit on the small table beside the bed was nearly gutted.

  “Arielle? Come along, you must have your dinner. I have prepared it, and it is your responsibility to praise my food.”

  She wasn’t certain what she’d expected him to say, but that amused voice speaking nonsense wasn’t it. He’d abducted her, for heaven’s sake. She called out, “A man—an earl especially—doesn’t go near the kitchen, nor does a man cook for a woman.”

  “All right, I cooked dinner primarily for me, but you may have a bit, if you are very nice. Will you join me?”

  “I’m coming,” she called. Of course she’d come down. What choice did she have? It was what he wanted, after all. She didn’t bother looking at herself in the mirror. She saw no reason to give herself a fright. She smoothed down her gown, looked vaguely at the tear under her right arm, picked up the single candle, and opened the door. He stood in the corridor.

  She looked like a ragamuffin and so wonderful that he was hard pressed not to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was silly. He smiled and offered her his arm.

  “My lady? Shall we?”

  He’d changed into evening clothes, and looked every inch the lord of the manor. His linen was pristine white, his breeches and form-fitted coat stark black. She said nothing. She saw before her an awesome task. She had to convince him—a man—that he didn’t want her, that he should let her go. Her present appearance should have assisted in that goal, but it appeared that either he was myopic or he simply had no sense.

  “I sliced ham and fresh bread,” he said as he led her into the small wainscoted dining room to the right off the entrance hall. The table sat no more than eight, and the table and chairs, unlike the other furnishings, had a Spanish look, all heavy, dark wood, intricately carved.

  “Besides the ham and the bread, there is turtle soup, a gift from the housekeeper, who lives nearby. I had nothing to do with the wine save uncork it with remarkable precision.” He held out a chair for her.

  He hadn’t seated her at one end of the table, rathe
r at his right. It was too close to him, but she forced herself to ease into the chair. “Shall I serve you some soup?”

  She nodded. She was ravenous, and her stomach gave a notable growl.

  Burke served both of them, then sat. She was eating the soup now, hopefully finding it to her liking. He saw her reach for the salt shaker and give it a liberal shake. He tasted his own soup and held out his hand. They ate in silence. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable silence, but then again it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable either.

  The dining room was in shadows, all save the table, which held a single branch of candles lighting the turtle soup and the two of them. And her beautiful hair. She hadn’t even bothered to comb out the tangles, but Burke didn’t mind. He liked her hair wild and free, tumbling down her back.

  “It is difficult, you know,” he said after finishing off his soup, “to find a topic of conversation that is of acceptable interest to the lady I was forced to abduct. She isn’t all that receptive to me as yet, you see, and I have no wish to make her unhappy or frighten her. By any chance, would you have a suggestion?”

  “Let the lady leave. She is discreet, you know, and she will not tell a single soul anything. However, you must also tell her what you have done with her servants so she may fetch them. And her horses and her carriage.”

  “But I am concerned about her reputation. After all, she is alone in the company of a man who is not yet her husband—”

  “She cares not one whit about her reputation. She could be alone with you for a year and still it wouldn’t matter.”

  That had to be a clanker, he thought, and served himself some ham. “Would you care for some?”

  Arielle served herself. There was a pall of silence that lasted through Burke’s dinner.

  “Actually,” Burke said, picking up his wineglass and swishing the deep red bordeaux about, “the lady is wonderful, albeit a puzzle, and the gentleman wants her to know that and believe he is telling the truth.”

  “The lady cannot believe it,” she said, very quietly, and gave him a quick look.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Please, my lord—”

  “Burke.”

  “All right. Burke. The lady isn’t that much of a fool. Please, enough of this. Let me go. It’s true, I won’t tell anyone—”

  “Stop talking, Arielle.”

  She did, instantly, becoming as still as the fork beside her plate.

  “I didn’t mean for you to turn into a statue on me or stop breathing. I simply want you to cease your Greek chorus, for it will do you no good. I am not going to let you go. I am going to teach you that you can’t live without me.” There, he’d said it. “I’m going to teach you to love me, and that’s all there is to it. You wouldn’t give me the chance before, so I’ve given it to myself.”

  “Love you,” she said, turning her head to stare at him.

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  She nearly shouted at him that love was a hoax perpetrated by men to draw women in. But she controlled herself. She had to be logical, convincing. “You are remembering another girl, Burke. You doubtless found her enchanting because she so obviously worshipped you. But that girl is dead. You lost her. She lost herself. Go find another. I am sorry, but I would not lie to you. She is dead.”

  “That girl, my dear, is sitting next to me. She didn’t die, she simply grew up. If you are referring to your loss of innocence, I care not that you aren’t a virgin, that you’ve known another man. I truly don’t. Believe it, Arielle. I have wished that I’d married you when you were sixteen, but I didn’t and what’s done is done. It is ridiculous to don a horsehair shirt and wail about the past. What I want is a future with you, and I fully intend to have it.”

  “But I don’t want you.”

  “I can’t believe that. I won’t believe it. You loved me once, you will love me again.”

  She wanted to scream at him. Instead, narrowing her eyes, she said, “Not only did I know another man, I knew several. In fact, I have no innocence, none at all. I know quite a lot. Too much, perhaps. Probably more than a mistress knows. I am not a lady wife, not at all an appropriate female for a countess, surely. Go find yourself a sweet innocent in her first season, Burke.”

  “You had lovers, Arielle?”

  “I find that word strangely inaccurate.”

  “You had other men in your bed, then? Your husband was old, and you were lonely and you were seduced?”

  She would disgust him; she saw her way clearly now. She would repel him so thoroughly that he would be quite content to send her on her way. “Not seduced, no. I did the seducing. And you were quite right about his illegitimate son, Etienne. He said he’d never before met anyone like me.” That was the truth, she thought, bile rising in her throat. “As I did him.” She had trouble getting those words out of her mouth. She hadn’t realized it would be so difficult to speak like this.

  “Did your husband know of it?” He sounded calm, very nearly disinterested, and Arielle was so caught up in shaping her lie and keeping herself from retching at her own words that she didn’t notice his underlying anger.

  “Certainly he knew. He—approved.”

  “Why did you marry him?”

  Because I was told to, and I didn’t ever imagine that I had a choice, and I was only sixteen and so innocent and grieving about my father and—She could only shake her head. She looked down at the remnants of her ham. The words came out easily enough. “He was rich.”

  “Not that rich. If you’d wanted money, you should have waited for me. I told you I would come back to you.”

  “Only a twit would have believed that.”

  It was indeed curious, Burke was thinking. She was mixing truth with lies, and he wasn’t exactly certain which was which. “The bird-in-the-hand theory?”

  It had been Evan’s theory, evidently. She nodded. Of course, she’d never told her half brother about the Earl of Ravensworth. She hadn’t told him much of anything. She’d been married to Paisley Cochrane without so much as a by-your-leave. That pale, sad-eyed girl in the small church, not really understanding, not until that night when he’d ripped off her nightgown and—She’d let out a small cry.

  Burke clasped her hand. “What’s wrong? What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and the word came out on a gasp.

  “All right,” he said. He sat back in his chair and clamped down on his frustration. “You and I have been fencing about for a good while now. I want it to stop. I want you to understand something, Arielle, very clearly. Tonight you will come with me to my bedchamber. You will sleep with me.”

  She’d never slept with a man. “Why?”

  He cocked his head at her.

  “Why would you want to sleep with me? That sounds rather curious.”

  He was confused. “You mean—no, forget that. Let me make myself perfectly clear. You will sleep with me after I have made love to you.”

  He knew he’d get a reaction, but the one he got wasn’t at all what he’d expected. She threw her plate with its ham slices at his head. Arielle was out of her chair and in the entrance hall before he had peeled the last ham slice from over his left eye.

  “Arielle.” He was out of his own chair, knocking it flat. He saw her tugging furiously at the front-door knob, and it finally turned and she was outside in an instant. He was six steps behind her. He shouted her name again but she didn’t stop. If anything, she ran all the faster.

  It was still raining hard, thick cold rain that soaked him in three steps. He was furious with her. He was scared for her. He didn’t really know what he was. He saw her running toward the stable, her hair flying out behind her, becoming quickly matted to her head, her skirts sodden, dragging her down.

  She felt a stitch in her side and ignored it. The stable was dark and smelled of horse, leather, linseed oil, and hay. No light, she thought foolishly. She heard a horse whinny and rush
ed toward the sound. Then she heard the stable door slam shut.

  Burke knew where the lantern was. He felt his way to it and after several frustrated minutes managed to get it lit. He held it up. He saw Arielle pressed against the far wall of the stable. In her hand she held a riding crop. Her breasts were heaving, her nipples pressing against the soaked bodice of her gown. But he kept his eyes on her pale face.

  “Don’t come near me.”

  He hadn’t expected anything like this. She looked wild, nearly hysterical. “All right,” he said mildly, set the lantern down on a bale of hay, and slowly straightened to lean against the empty stall next to his horse’s.

  “Really, I mean it.”

  “I see that you do. Now what is this all about?”

  She held up the riding crop and her voice was shaking, from fear, from the cold, he didn’t know. “Go away. I am leaving. I will hit you with this if you don’t.”

  “You will? I wonder if you can.” Enough was enough. He pushed away from the stall. He walked toward her, his step purposeful, and she was so afraid she thought she would die of it. Paralyzing fear, the kind she’d known for so long, flooded her. She closed her eyes, and in the next instant, struck out with the crop.

  It connected and she heard him suck in his breath. Burke grabbed her wrist and calmly wrested the riding crop from her hand.

  “That hurt,” he said and released her. He stepped back, the crop still in his hand. He rubbed his arm, and she saw how it had sliced through his coat sleeve.

  Arielle was beyond thought. She saw that crop, saw that he held it with great familiarity, and knew that she’d gone too far. She’d lost her head and now she would pay for it. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving the riding crop. “Please.”

  “You hurt me,” he said, wondering what the devil he was supposed to do now.

  “I—I will do as you please.”

  “You know what it is I want, Arielle.”