Through the Smoke

by Brenda Novak

  Annoyed by his sarcasm, Rachel stepped away. “Are you insinuating that I am lying, sir?”

  “I am not insinuating anything. Rather, I am making it clear that I do not believe you.” He lifted a hand before she could protest. “But I don’t care what you tell my cousin of your time at Elspeth’s. Make him believe that there have been no others before him, if you like, and charge him a virgin’s rates. He deserves to be duped for taking my suggestion after nearly breaking my jaw for making it.”

  “What?” Rachel shook her head. “You are drunk, sir.” She could smell him from where she stood, even though he was now more than an arm’s length away, and he was making no sense. “Believe what you will about Elspeth’s. I know my dealings with her are innocent enough.”

  After stooping to retrieve her lantern, she tried to lead Gilly onto the road, but the stubborn animal merely threw its head, almost yanking her arm out of its socket in the process.

  “Come on, Gilly. Let us be about our errand. Blackmoor Hall isn’t far, but it’s getting late.” Rachel gave the rope another tug—all to no avail. Gilly continued to nibble at the patch of dead grass he had uncovered at the foot of a tree.

  “It is getting late,” Wythe agreed. “And you wouldn’t want to keep the mighty earl waiting. I will even escort you, since he did not deem you worthy enough to send his carriage.” The earl’s cousin stood next to his horse, watching her struggle with her own animal without moving to help. “Better yet”—he stepped forward, his hand closing over hers where she grasped the donkey’s lead—“perhaps you will give me the first toss. We could slip into my room, where it will be warm and dry. I would ride you easy and pay you well since I can think of no better revenge than sending you to my dear cousin with the smell of me still on you.”

  The crudity of Wythe’s words hit Rachel like a fist to the stomach. “Let go!”

  His expression grew more purposeful instead of less, and his fingers tightened. “Surely you can afford me a few minutes of your precious time,” he said and leaned in as though he’d kiss her.

  Rachel didn’t wait to find out whether that was his intent. Swinging her lantern in a great arc, she brought it crashing down on his head.

  The sound of breaking glass grated on the air.

  A second later, he collapsed and the light winked out.

  Shocked by what she’d done, as well as by the results of it, she blinked until her eyes grew accustomed to the sudden darkness. It wasn’t easy to see, but soon she could make out the twinkle of broken glass and the darker shape of Wythe, who was beginning to moan and rub his temples.

  He wasn’t dead.

  Thank God.

  But what would he do to her when he recovered?

  Moving quickly, she found Gilly’s rope and attempted to lead him out of the trees but, once again, the ass refused to budge.

  What was she going to do? If she couldn’t get the donkey to cooperate, she’d have to flee on foot. But that would be futile. Wythe had a horse. He’d catch her in a matter of minutes, even with a head start.

  Spouting one curse after another, the earl’s cousin tried to stand, but he was unsteady enough that Rachel was able to push him back into the snow. After that, she captured the reins of his horse and, mumbling some soothing words that were more of a prayer for her own safety, led the spooked animal to a fallen tree.

  As Wythe staggered to his feet, she wedged her foot into the stirrup and used the saddle to pull herself off the ground. But she wasn’t encouraged by the results. She hung suspended for what felt like an eternity before managing to settle astride the beast.

  “Don’t even think about taking my mount,” Wythe warned, but she was committed to her escape. Squeezing her eyes shut, she gave the animal a panicked kick.

  The horse reared up and launched into a full run. As the ground rushed past her, she could hear Wythe’s voice echoing through the trees behind her: “You bloody whore. You’ll pay for this!”

  Rachel hung on for dear life, but it wasn’t long before her knuckles hurt too badly to grip the horse’s mane. She’d lost the reins the moment she climbed into the saddle. They dragged on the ground, hopelessly out of reach.

  In an effort to ease the terrible cramp in her hands, she adjusted her hold and looked ahead.

  Between the indistinct scenery flying past her, the rush of wind that brought tears to her eyes and the patches of deep darkness, where the towering trees blocked even the moon’s light, everything was a blur. But she didn’t have to see much to know that she was perilously close to the edge of the cliff. As the animal surged on, she could hear the surf below.…

  Dear God… She tried to steer Wythe’s horse away from land’s end, but the spooked animal had had enough of human intervention. It charged heedlessly on, sending frozen dirt clods tumbling over the edge.

  Rachel’s pulse pounded as rapidly, though far less rhythmically, than the animal’s hooves. What have I done?

  Using her thighs, her hands, anything she could to hang on, she looked behind her but saw no sign of Wythe. Her plan had worked far too well. There was no one to check the horse’s wild flight, or to get help.

  Blackmoor Hall materialized in front of her like a giant falcon with wings spread. As overwhelming as it could be, the house was a welcome sight tonight—offering, as it did, a modicum of hope that the horse would merely return to its stable. There was a moment when Rachel thought she might be fine, but that hope disappeared when her mount cut away from the road to jump the stone fence.

  Rachel screamed as she came out of the saddle. She could feel the mane slipping through her fingers.… Once it was gone, the exhilaration of free fall lifted her stomach into her throat and the ground caught her with a solid and unyielding thump.

  The door to Truman’s bedroom was always shut late at night to hold in the heat of the fire the maids lit before hurrying to their beds.

  He entered the welcoming comfort of that warmth and removed his stock and shirt before leaning one hand against the mantel and staring into the fire smoldering in the grate.

  I’m getting closer, he thought, closer to the truth. And Linley would help him uncover the rest of it.

  At the side table in the corner of the room, Truman poured himself a brandy. Holding the first swallow in his mouth to savor the rich taste, he stood with his back to the black night beyond his window, once again contemplating the flames and what his dream two nights ago had revealed.

  Everyone was gone that Sunday when the fire broke out—except Katherine. He’d found his wife wearing nothing but a delicate wrap and sitting in front of her boudoir, brushing her hair. He remembered thinking it was so typical of her. The mirror and the image it projected were all-important to her. Even pregnant and ill, she worked to protect her vanity.

  But he’d grown to expect nothing more. He’d told her he wanted a divorce. She’d gone hysterical and followed him into the library, threatening, pleading, cajoling. It was there that she swore she still loved him. That she told him her family would do everything possible to stop him from obtaining the Act of Parliament a divorce would require.

  That had caused such an upwelling of emotion he’d never realized his father’s favorite painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, was not on the wall where it had hung for years—not until that detail had surfaced from somewhere deep in his subconscious.

  An original by Pieter Bruegel, the painting was part of a much larger collection that had been on display throughout the manor. The place where it normally hung should have jumped out at him the moment he entered the room.

  Maybe it had. Maybe he’d lost that detail in the haze of darkness that soon followed.

  Or perhaps he was dreaming up the missing painting.

  Truman sighed. He hoped he would soon find out. He was sending Linley to London in the morning to visit another avid collector. If he had to, he would have Linley visit every art expert in England, his mission to discover any piece of the collection supposedly destroyed in the fire. If h
e could find just one—

  A groan drew his eyes to the bed, but the rich, burgundy draperies that hung there concealed who or what might have made the sound.

  What the devil? Assuming it was Susanna, that she had come to his bed despite his earlier refusal, he crossed the floor and yanked the draperies back. But it wasn’t his maid. It was Rachel McTavish! She lay with her eyelashes resting against her cheeks, her long blond hair unfurled on his pillow like a flag—as beautiful as any of the fine ladies he’d known.

  Evidently Wythe hadn’t been content to tempt him with mere words. He’d sent for her. And she’d come, just like his cousin predicted she would.

  Where the sheet gaped, Truman could see one bare breast and realized she was naked beneath the quilts. How long had she been waiting for him? Why hadn’t someone informed him she was here?

  How like his cousin to taunt him with the knowledge that, despite his noble words, he wouldn’t be able to refuse her.…

  With that thought, he almost stepped away from the bed. He could make a considerable dent in Wythe’s smugness by sending her home straightaway.

  If only he didn’t long to touch her, to erase the vision of her sadness from his mind… a sadness he was partly responsible for causing.

  How much had Wythe paid her?

  It had to be a vast sum, to bring her to him. But he couldn’t find it in him to fault her. Not now, when he so badly wanted what she was willing to trade.

  He remembered how courageously she’d defended her family. When he’d watched her at her mother’s funeral, standing there desolate yet strong, he’d known she was nothing like her father. She was rare and beautiful and, heaven help him, he could not stifle the desire that slammed into him with the force of the ocean battering the cliffs outside. It caused his hand to shake as he reached out to slide a finger down her pale, slim arm.

  “Rachel?”

  She whimpered in her sleep but turned toward him, seeking his voice, making herself more accessible to his touch.

  Send her home, his mind urged. For honor’s sake, send her home. Her mother’s funeral was today.

  But the demands of his body spoke louder still.

  The bed dipped, creating a pool of warmth where there hadn’t been one before. Rachel snuggled closer and found a hard, lean body reaching for her, a glorious body with smooth skin covering powerful muscle.

  Other sensations began to seep into her consciousness as well. The light caress of a man’s fingers moving over her cheek and down her throat. The soft fan of his breath against her skin. Steel-like arms gathering her close.

  Who was it?

  Strangely, Rachel wasn’t alarmed. She breathed in the unique scent of brandy, horses and cologne and immediately recognized the Earl of Druridge. It had to be him, for there was no other like him, and she remembered his scent all too well. The same scent had clung to the cloak he’d loaned her.

  Pressing her face into his neck, she acknowledged his identity without thought of resistance. She didn’t know where he had come from, or how he had suddenly appeared in her bed, so he could only be a dream.

  And, although she hated to admit it, she’d had this dream before.…

  Sensing rather than seeing the dim glow of a fire in the background, Rachel tried to open her eyes, but her lids were far too heavy. Her mind seemed to be floating somewhere above her, above them both. But she could feel the earl’s hands on her breasts, touching and teasing them as he coaxed her to respond to him and distantly wondered at her own inability to refuse.

  She hated him. Didn’t she?

  No, not at the moment. She wasn’t capable of feeling any such negative emotion, not when her thoughts were so befuddled and her head ached. Briefly, she conjured snippets of a memory—of Wythe bending over her and hefting her into his arms—but that image didn’t make sense. And, thankfully, the loathsome Wythe was gone. It was the earl who was playing her body as expertly as a master cellist draws only the sweetest notes from his instrument’s strings.

  “How the mere thought of you has haunted me,” he murmured, sliding his fingers down her stomach as though he could hardly believe he’d gained access to her body.

  She smiled. Evidently her subconscious had conjured a much more solicitous earl than the one she knew. This man was all that was gentle and good as he kissed her neck, her jaw and finally her mouth.

  Rachel parted her lips for him, instinctively knowing what he craved and wanting the same. That simple act of submission seemed to quicken something inside him. He groaned before deepening the kiss, at which point Rachel’s thoughts began to splinter. More memories surfaced—a horse accident, that vision of Wythe looming over her while she lay on the ground, staring into the starry sky as he carried her… somewhere. But her mind could make no sense of the long nothingness that followed. And now she seemed to be viewing things from afar, disconnected, yet somehow on fire.

  The earl’s hands were everywhere, strong and sure as they found the hidden treasures they sought. Even the hand with the scars felt like heaven on her body, once she insisted he remove the glove he always wore. He seemed to like that she wasn’t put off by his scars, that she wanted him to touch her with nothing in between, and his mouth followed his hands, nibbling first at her ear, her neck and finally licking one nipple.

  She heard her own small cry at the pleasure he gave her, felt all her nerves draw up tight just below her belly. Someplace deep inside her had begun to pulse with warmth and readiness, causing her to strain for the release she craved but didn’t know how to achieve.

  “Soon, sweet Rachel, soon,” he assured her, his voice hoarse with his own need as she tried to pull him on top of her. “There’s no hurry. Let me savor the taste and feel of you.” The muscles in his back and arms bunched beneath her touch, telling her he felt the same urgency but was holding back.

  She clung to him as his fingers moved lower still, below her belly button around the curve of one hip to the apex of her thighs, sweeping her away in a storm of desire so intense she couldn’t catch her breath. Arching toward him, she insisted he give her that mysterious something as soon as possible.

  “Now,” she urged. “I need… I need you.”

  He couldn’t seem to wait any longer either. But as soon as he settled her beneath him and pressed inside her, a white, hot pain lanced up from between her thighs, shocking her as badly as her startled reaction seemed to surprise him.

  Stiffening, she tried to recoil from whatever he’d stabbed her with. But he wouldn’t move; neither would he let her go.

  “Rachel, I didn’t know,” he murmured. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Rachel’s tongue felt too numb to speak. Tears gathered in her eyes and began to roll into her hair. She could feel her body start to quiver as the physical pain joined the heartache of remembering her mother.

  Druridge smoothed her hair off her forehead and kissed her tears away. “Shh,” he whispered. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry.” He pulled back in an unspoken plea for her to look up at him, and finally Rachel managed to open her eyes.

  The fire outlined his dark head and the broad width of his shoulders as he leaned on his elbows above her. He’s beautiful, she thought. But he was no dream. She didn’t know how it had happened. At this point, she couldn’t even guess. But she was in the earl’s large, soft bed.

  And he had just taken her virginity.

  Chapter 6

  That night Truman didn’t dream. Once he was able to coax Rachel into letting him touch her again, he’d obtained one of the most powerful climaxes he’d ever experienced, and then he’d slept like the dead—comfortable, relaxed, content at last.

  When morning came, he reluctantly roused himself. He wasn’t sure how long the sun had been boring through the crack in the draperies, but he could see the light behind his closed lids and knew dawn was several hours past. He’d slept in. He’d probably missed a whole slew of appointments at the colliery but, oddly enough, he couldn’t find it in him to care. Katherine’s r
estless ghost wasn’t hovering over him at the moment. It was almost as if Rachel’s innocence had banished the past long enough to let him sleep deeply for the first time in two years.

  Instinctively, he reached for her, searching the bed with his hands before opening his eyes. But she was gone.

  “Damn,” he muttered, feeling a surprising sense of loss. He tried to shake off his disappointment, but the scent of her lingered, tantalizing him with the memory of how it had been to bed the strong-willed beauty he’d admired since their first meeting at the bookshop. Better, and worse, was the knowledge that only he had possessed her. Better because it somehow branded her as his own—and worse for the same reason.

  Pulling back the bedding, he gazed at the slight smear of blood that proved last night had not been fantasy. Part of him felt like he owed her something more than money, even though she’d obviously agreed to whatever Wythe had arranged.

  He’d pay a handsome stipend, Truman decided. She needed financial wherewithal, so that was the best way to help her. Then he’d stay away. Soon the memory of last night would fade in her mind, and the good his money would do her and young Geordie would absolve his conscience for having behaved no better than Wythe.

  With a fresh burst of energy, he pulled the linens off his bed and piled them on the floor for the maids to wash. The sooner he rid his room of any reminder of the bookseller’s daughter, the sooner he could forget the confusing emotions she inspired: the regret, the tenderness, the obligation, the longing.

  “There,” he said aloud and rang for his valet so he could dress. But when he turned toward the bureau, he spotted something wadded up on top.

  Closer examination revealed it to be a ten-pound note. For a moment, he pretended a servant had found it in the laundry or that he’d left it there himself. But deep down he knew.

  It had come from Rachel. The only thing he didn’t understand was why.

  Rachel, ye ’ad me good an’ frightened last night; that ye did.