If He's Daring

by Hannah Howell

  The thing that troubled him the most, however, was why his late cousin would tell the child that he was his father. That made no sense at all. Orion knew Catryn had been faithful to her husband. He had absolutely no doubt about that. The fact that Aeddon said he could not say how it could be yet, because he did not have the words a young child should say, bothered him even more. It implied that something bad may have happened to Catryn. Orion had never heard that Aeddon was a man who abused women, however.

  He glanced at Catryn one more time and savored the sight of her sitting beside him, her hair slowly coming undone as the wind tore through it. She smiled faintly as she watched the countryside go by. There was nothing about Catryn that made him think she had been forced by a man. Left unsatisfied, most certainly, and used for no more than breeding an heir, but not abused.

  Orion decided to set the puzzle aside for now. He concentrated on getting them to Radmoor as quickly as he could without endangering the team. Once Alwyn was safe with his cousins, he could work hard to catch Morris and just maybe find a few answers to all the puzzles that surrounded Catryn and her son.

  Chapter Ten

  “Are you certain we will be welcome?” Catryn asked when Orion helped her down from the driver’s perch, and she gasped at the sight of the huge manor house.

  “Of course we will.” Orion idly assisted her in tidying her windblown hair. “Once you have met them you will understand my confidence. Penelope has more heart than is wise sometimes.” He smiled at Alwyn when they reached the ornate oak doors and he knocked. “I think you shall quite enjoy staying here, young man, and talking with our Penelope. She is like you.”

  Before Catryn could ask what he meant by staying here, they were being let into the house by a tall, thin butler. The next few moments were chaotic as they were led into a large parlor filled with boys. She struggled to recall each name spoken as she was introduced but was heartily glad when the introductions were over. She was seated next to her hostess and sipping at a cup of tea served to her by a smiling maid while Orion explained all they had been through, idly rubbing the heads of the two young boys who clung to his legs.

  The array of delicacies that was set before her was so tempting, she allowed Orion to tell his cousins her story while she filled a surprisingly large hole in her stomach and fought to conquer a large twinge of jealousy over how he had given three different women some almost beautiful boys. She studied Lady Penelope and Lord Ashton Radmoor. The Viscount of Radmoor was a tall, lean, handsome man with his golden hair and bluish gray eyes. The viscountess was a good match for him. Small, and lithe despite the rounding stomach that revealed she was with child, she had thick brown hair that gleamed with hints of red and gold and eyes that reminded Catryn of the sea. Rather like her own, she mused, or so Orion had claimed as they had driven here. Catryn thought Penelope’s were a much more dramatic color than her own.

  They made a beautiful couple, she decided, and looked around the large, crowded room. They were also well matched in the goodness of their hearts. She was humbled and fascinated by this couple who opened their luxurious home to children whom so many of the gentry had tossed aside. Ones of their class usually cared only for their legitimate children, giving barely a thought to any others they bred so carelessly. A man was considered quite a good fellow if he gave the woman who bore his illegitimate child some money to raise him or her. They certainly cared little for the urchins scratching out a life on the streets of the city.

  The fact that Orion obviously cared for his sons was probably why she was no longer shocked and a little disgusted by his profligacy. The boys were healthy, dressed warmly, accepted fully despite the irregularity of their birth, and Orion supported them very well. He may have been heedless in one way, but he was a good father in every other.

  “You must have been terrified,” Lady Penelope said, breaking into Catryn’s thoughts as she patted her arm.

  “I was always trying very hard not to envision the worst, my lady,” Catryn replied honestly.

  “Please, call me Penelope, and with your permission I shall call you Catryn.” She waved a small hand to indicate the room crowded with children. “As you can see, we are a bit lax on the formalities, especially here, away from the critical eyes of society.”

  “Sir Orion was right about you.”

  “Oh dear, what did he say?”

  “That I should not worry about meeting you for you have a very big heart.” She smiled when Penelope blushed. “You do, as does your husband. To care for so many even when you are starting a family of your own”—she nodded at the rounding stomach Penelope’s gown could not quite hide—“requires a very big heart indeed. Especially when some are not even of your blood.”

  “Ah, well, those boys helped Giles when he needed it, and we do have our suspicions about two of the little devils, that they may be kin, but we are not certain yet.”

  “No one would take them in? Mother or father?”

  “The mothers did not want any of them. The fathers have not cast them aside but most are single gentlemen. I set up a house to care for my brothers when, after our father died, they were cast aside by my mother. Soon, one by one, they will all leave us, for if my uncle Argus is any indication, the men will take their child or children into their new household once they are wed and settled.”

  Penelope smiled at Catryn. “And do not think that they do not help support or care for their children, the rogues. In some ways we are akin to a boarding school here, keeping the boys civilized and seeing to their learning while their fathers do whatever it is they do. But even though we can well afford the care, every father who leaves a child with us pays for that child’s upkeep. Wherlockes and Vaughns are taught to care for and support their children, legitimate or not, and few ever break that rule.”

  There was a touch of ferocity behind those last words that roused Catryn’s curiosity, but Giles and Alwyn ran up to her before she gave in to the urge to ask any impertinent and far too personal questions. She noted yet again that Giles was staying very close to Alwyn, much like an appointed guard. The boy had that protective, watchful stance of a dutiful guard as well. He was far too young for such an important task, but Catryn would never tell him that. Not only could she never sting his boyish pride in such a manner, but she strongly suspected her son would get quite cross if she tried to separate him from Giles in any way. It was clear for anyone to see that Alwyn already adored Giles despite having known the boy for only a few hours.

  “May I go outside with the other children?” Alwyn asked.

  Catryn abruptly discovered that having Alwyn back had not diminished her fear. Before Morris had taken her son, she would not have hesitated to say yes to him. She hastily smothered the fear that had her aching to say no. They had left Morris far behind. They were now safe behind the walls of a viscount’s well-manned house in the country and surrounded by people. Alwyn would also be surrounded by boys, some of whom had been hardened by a life on the streets and others who had gifts that could also help keep him safe. It was just as she was struggling to say yes that Penelope patted her hand and she realized she had clenched them together tightly in her lap.

  “He will be fine,” Penelope said. “He will be very well protected at all times.”

  The face Alwyn turned toward Lady Penelope held a wary look, but then he suddenly smiled. “Yes, I am, and I will have Giles with me, too. He will keep me safe. He saved me from Morris.”

  Watching the way Lady Penelope studied the empty space behind Alwyn and then smiled, Catryn wanted to ask the woman what she was looking at. Then she saw how Giles stood straighter at Alwyn’s words, his thin chest puffing out, and knew that getting some answers from Lady Penelope would have to wait. The uneasiness she felt crawling through her veins over the way the woman acted would have to be ignored for a while.

  “Yes, you do have Giles and I know well that he will watch over you like a hawk,” she told her son. “So go. Go and play.” She could see that her words pleas
ed Giles far more than the kiss and hug she had given him before climbing up on the driver’s perch for the second leg of their journey here.

  In only a moment Catryn found herself alone in the room with Penelope. Orion and Lord Ashton had left the room just before the boys to go and study some maps, although Orion had not explained why. Catryn ate one of the small ginger cakes and struggled not to ask Penelope what she had been looking at, what she had seen, behind Alwyn. Sipping tea to wash down the last of the cake, she decided she could not just ignore it. It was something that concerned her child and she had a need, a right, to know.

  “What did you see behind Alwyn?” she asked as she placed her cup and dish back on the table. “You were not looking at him but at something else. Was it something dark? Something evil?” Her voice grew softer, became nearly a whisper as she put her greatest fear into words.

  “No, most certainly not. I saw a protector. Your son has a gift . . . ,” began Penelope.

  “Sweet Mary, not a gift,” Catryn muttered and then saw Penelope frown. “I am sorry. I mean no insult. I am trying, truly trying, to understand these matters, but it is not easy. My baby talks to spirits. And how can my son have a gift? We are not Wherlockes or Vaughns. Although my father has yet to respond to my message in which I questioned him about it, I cannot see why any such connection would have been kept a secret.”

  “Oh, any connection to us has long been kept secret by many. Families buried that connection as deeply as they could,” Penelope said. “We have a long history of being rejected, reviled, hunted, killed, tortured, and ignored. Once the laws changed and people were no longer allowed to hunt, torture, and kill us for what we can do, we began to step out of the shadows more. We were never fully hidden and we are not showing our secrets to the whole world now, but some of the fear of us remains. That is why we keep our distance from the rest of society, for the most part.”

  “And that would be why any family that had some connection to yours would hide it from the world if it could.” She nodded, understanding that. “I told Alwyn not to let anyone know that he talks to people no one else can see. My mother told me not to tell anyone that I could sense danger, threats. Do you think you will ever know how many are still hiding their ties to your family or have actually lost all knowledge of that connection?”

  “Well, there is that little something about us that cannot be hidden, and it can lead us to lost family members.”

  “Oh.” Catryn sighed. “That.”

  Penelope laughed. “Yes, that. You know, have always known, that what Alwyn does is more than a child’s game, have you not?”

  “Yes, despite trying very hard not to acknowledge that. I doubt any mother would welcome something that will make her child so different, something that could cause him untold trouble later in his life. I am not very pleased about the idea that there are spirits in my house, either.”

  “True enough. Does your father have any gift? Anything he does that is, well, unusual?”

  “He is very good at investments but that is all. The only time our family suffered from a bad investment was when my mother’s father decided my father did not know best and put the money into something else. It nearly ruined us. My father had specifically told him not to place the funds there, but . . .” Catryn shrugged.

  “Older man too prideful to follow the advice of a much younger man. Always a ripe brew for trouble. Your grandfather would, of course, not want to always follow such a younger man’s advice, being that he surely knew more about the world than that boy.” Penelope shook her head. “A problem as old as mankind itself.”

  “But that can hardly be termed a gift. My father just understands such things better, has a sharper eye for what would pay and what would not. When my grandfather told him what he wanted to put our money into, my father studied it, listened to what he had to say, and said that it would fail, that we could lose everything. The only reason we did not was because my grandfather obviously felt a little guilty about going behind my father’s back and investing our funds anyway, so he secured some funds out of the reach of any creditors that might follow a failure.” She sighed. “In a way, I believe that mistake and the shame he suffered from it were what killed my grandfather.”

  “Sad to say, that is possible. Or perhaps it simply exacerbated something that was already within him.”

  Catryn nodded. “You said Alwyn has a protector?”

  Penelope nodded. “That is what clings to him. It is the spirit of someone who feels he must watch over the boy, must make up for something he did, but he is not inclined to tell me what, despite the fact that he is the most talkative ghost I have met in a very long time.”

  “I think you need to tell me a few things about spirits. Perhaps if I know more, understand more, I will calm myself and know how to go on with my son.”

  Catryn’s mind was still reeling when she wandered out into the moonlit garden Penelope had urged her to visit. Not only had she learned more than she could fully comprehend about what her son was doing when he spoke to the spirit, but over dinner they had discussed what she and Orion would do next concerning Morris. Now that Ashton and Penelope had retired, she needed to sit in the garden, let the quiet of the night surround her, and just think.

  There had been too many changes in her life since Morris had taken Alwyn. Not only was she suddenly plunged into a rescue of her son, risking her reputation, and more, to get him back, but she had met a man who stirred something inside, a very hungry something, that was both exciting and frightening. Now she had to accept that her son truly was speaking to the dead and always would, as well as the fact that this trouble with Morris was not at an end.

  She supposed it had been foolish to think getting Alwyn back would end it, that she could then just return home to her quiet life. Morris could not be allowed to lurk out there unpunished for what he had done, free to try again. Recalling how doggedly he had fought her in the courts, she knew she should have thought about that more. Her mind had been set on getting her son back and she had not allowed much else to concern her. But she had to agree with Orion. Morris had to be punished in a way that made him leave her and her son alone from now on. If not, she would spend the rest of her life, or his, always fearing the worst.

  And then there was the too handsome Sir Orion Wherlocke. He had thought to leave her behind and, with a few of his relatives, go find Morris and settle the matter. She had made her disapproval of that idea plain enough. It had been a long argument, finally settled by Penelope. The woman had pointed out that it was Catryn’s fight, Catryn’s family, and Catryn had a right to join the battle. It was clear to see that Orion had not liked that, but he had conceded.

  Now Catryn wondered if that was the right thing to do. Despite all she had just been through, she was no warrior, nor skilled in hunting someone down and threatening them. All she had to aid the search for Morris was knowledge of the man and where he might try to hide. The compromise had been that she and Orion would leave Giles and Alwyn at Radmoor, search for Morris, and then send for help when they found him.

  That compromise meant that she had just agreed to spend more time with Orion, alone, traveling around the countryside. Catryn knew she also had to decide what to do about that desire he could so easily stir within her. Her choices were simple. She buried it deep and remained no more than a traveling companion or she set it free and became a daring widow who could take a lover for a while and walk away when the journey was done.

  Catryn was surprised at how tempted she was to do the latter. Daring was not something she had ever thought herself to be. Orion and the attraction she knew without doubt was mutual made her that way. For once in her life she wanted to reach out and take what she wanted and not worry about consequences. The only thing that held her back was that she knew there was a good chance one of those consequences could be a broken heart.

  The soft sound of someone approaching nearly made her sigh with irritation, but that changed when she caught the gently entici
ng scent of Orion. It was odd how she could scent him in the air like a dog scented its master. The man wore no strong perfumes and he was a very clean man as well. Yet he had, to her, a very distinct and attractive scent that drew her attention the moment he was anywhere near her.

  “I still believe you should stay here, safe with Alwyn,” Orion said as he sat down on the bench next to Catryn.

  “You lost that argument,” she said as she bit back a smile, for he sounded almost sulky.

  “I know. If I was not having so much trouble finding this cursed man before we can do no more than run from him I would have fought harder. But there is that shield around him which hides him from my gift, and Penelope agrees that the man must have one. That leaves me with the need to have someone who knows him well, or at least better than I do, at my side to help decide where to look next.”

  “You believe he is in hiding now that we have taken Alwyn back.”

  “I sense by your tone that you do not,” he said as he studied her, thinking how well the moonlight suited her.

  “No, I do not. It would make sense to stop now. We know what he did, and might think to bring charges against him. The correct thing for him to do now is to flee the country, let this all fade away.”

  “That is certainly what I would do.”

  “And I. But I would also have given up after I lost the first court case to gain guardianship over Alwyn. Such things are very costly and I would never want to throw good money after bad.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her up against his side, ignoring her frown. She did not tense or pull away and, silent though she was, he knew that was acceptance of his touch. A part of him was pleased that they would continue on together, while a larger part wanted her to stay at Radmoor, safe and out of Morris’s reach. Since that was not going to happen, he was beginning to think he might just reach out for what else he wanted. The women in his family would give him an ear-burning lecture if he tried to seduce someone like Catryn, but he was thinking it might be worth it.