Conspiracy of Hearts

by Helen Dickson

  Unwittingly, he must have made a sound or she sensed his presence, for with a gasp she turned towards the door, swiftly placing the towel in front of her to conceal her nakedness. Her eyes widened with furious rage when they went beyond the door and focused on Kit’s smiling, impertinent face. She flushed scarlet, but then her chin came up and she burst into life like an erupting volcano.

  ‘Kit Brodie!’ she lambasted. ‘Have you no manners at all that you must come prowling and spy on me like an impertinent sneak thief!’

  Standing there half naked she tried to protect her modesty with a damp towel, finding it ironical that their roles should be reversed from the night she had come upon him stark naked in his chamber.

  She looked so adorable and desirable to Kit that he could not resist taunting her. Brazenly he pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind him to protect her from the eyes of other patrons staying at the inn. He grinned, pure devilment dancing in his black eyes as they travelled from her flaming face to the towel she clutched to her bosom.

  ‘I did knock—which is more than can be said of you when you sought me out in my chamber,’ Kit reminded her, his eyes resting on her full, soft lips. ‘The door was off the latch so I thought I’d wake you. Recalling how fatigued you were last night, I thought perhaps you might need a little encouragement to get out of bed.’

  ‘As you can see I am wide awake and getting washed, so kindly have the decency to leave,’ she snapped. ‘How dare you intrude on my privacy? I’m sure you have seen enough to appease your ardour.’

  Kit’s teeth flashed like a pirate’s in his swarthy face. Settling his hands on his hips, he slowly advanced towards her, the torment of wanting her almost unbearable. ‘Indeed, you are extremely fair to look upon, Serena. My eyes have not seen nearly enough and ache to see more.’

  Something in his expression made Serena shrink back. She was conscious of his height and how his mere presence seemed to fill the small chamber. Because he was fully dressed in his black doublet and thigh-length boots, she was extremely conscious of her own state of undress, and she was also conscious and alarmed that she was stirred by his masculinity. But she refused to surrender to the call of her blood and crushed these treacherous feelings that threatened to weaken her. Glaring at him, her green eyes were vibrant and burning with ire and indignation.

  ‘Don’t you dare lay a hand on me, Kit Brodie. Come any nearer and I swear I shall scream the place down.’

  Kit’s bold gaze continued to openly rake her body but, recognising the merits of restraint, he checked himself and advanced no farther. What had begun as teasing was in danger of turning to something more and getting completely out of hand if he touched her, because he knew if he did he would be unable to conquer his desire and would drag her on to the bed and make love to her. He chuckled and turned from her.

  ‘Fear not, Serena, I shall not abuse or take advantage of you in your moment of weakness. However,’ he murmured, turning and drinking his fill of her comely shape behind the towel once more, ‘I can only hope my act of mercy will in due course reap its own rewards.’

  Serena recognised the meaning behind his words. ‘You beast!’ she flared. He was laughing as he moved towards the door and her lips formed every conceivable insult she could throw at him as she gave vent to her anger. Bending down, she picked up her boot, hurling it viciously at the door as he passed through. Unfortunately it missed and hit the wood instead with a resounding thud before falling to the floor, and still she could hear his laughter as he went along the passageway.

  Kit derived immense pleasure from the memory he carried with him downstairs, and not even the landlord’s succulent breakfast could compete with the comeliness of Serena’s adorable assets. On a more serious note, he knew he must fight to keep tight rein on his desires where she was concerned. He was in no position to form a serious relationship with a woman of her background until he had cleared his name of the evil he had been unjustly accused of, and his property and titles had been restored.

  But, he thought, smiling quietly to himself, there was no reason why the time they had to spend together could not be pleasurable.

  After a long angry moment Serena calmed down enough to finish her toilet and dress for the day’s journey. Dreading the moment when she would have to face Kit, she was sorely tempted to leave him at the inn and find her way to the coast, despite having given him her word that she would do no such thing. But she knew she would get no farther than the end of the street before he discovered her absence and came after her.

  The sky was heavy with snow as Kit and Serena continued northwards. Knowing there would be no inn in which they could spend the night, there was a need for haste. It was Kit’s intention to reach their destination before nightfall.

  The countryside became wilder and more desolate. They followed drovers’ and packhorse tracks, tracks that had been followed for centuries. Serena was uneasy, certain they would lose their way and become lost—or worse. They might be set upon, robbed and murdered by thieves. But she found her fears easing gradually as they progressed, feeling a strange security in the presence of her companion—despite his conduct earlier. Kit knew the area well and, looking large and forbidding astride his large dappled brown horse, with a pistol at his belt and a sword hanging from his saddle, he would instil caution in the meanest robber.

  A lightening of spirits seemed to come over them both. Perhaps it was because they were conscious of nearing their destination or because the place itself was weaving a spell around them but, whatever the reason, Serena felt a whole new world inviting her to explore, becoming pleasantly aware of the beauty and strangeness all around her, the smell of the crisp, cold air, the sodden grass and rich damp earth which, like a drug, all seeped into her skin.

  Following Kit along the tracks, she listened in silent admiration as he ardently pointed out places of interest to her, enthusing at length about every one of them, telling her about the moorland ridges and the North Sea to the east, and the gently undulating Cheviots in the north. Serena saw her first shaggy cattle and black-faced sheep, and she laughed with Kit when they heard the chuckling grouse in the heather, watching in admiration as ptarmigan and wild duck took flight on being disturbed, and commented on the inquisitive black cock, whose sharp eyes would follow them until they were out of sight.

  It was clear to Serena how much Kit loved this country, that it was like wine to his soul, and how loath he must be to leave it for the south. They were in a valley sheltered from the buffeting wind that scudded the heavy snow clouds across the sky when they stopped for something to eat. A wide stream tumbled its way through the centre, in a hurry like themselves to reach its destination. Unfastening the bag containing the food they had purchased in Corbridge from Kit’s saddle, they left the horses to graze and found a secluded spot beneath some boulders.

  Serena perched on a rock, munching her bread and cheese in silence. Appreciative of the view she gazed along the length of the valley. Enthralled, a feeling of peace engulfed her. Having lived all her life in a turmoil, the quiet was foreign to her. In a sense she became like someone who had fallen under some kind of enchantment. Unbeknown to her the wind had brought colour to her cheeks and her face had softened, her magnificent eyes glowing jewel bright.

  ‘It’s a magnificent view,’ she commented softly, turning to look at her companion, and when she caught his eye she sensed he was feeling exactly as she felt, that the place had cast its own special enchantment on him, too, but unlike her he was familiar to it.

  Kit was sitting with his back against a rock watching her, an arm resting casually on his raised knee. Something in his expression made Serena’s breath catch in her throat and look away. A warm glow spread inside her and she felt a brazen longing to be close to him, a feeling not unknown to her, having experienced it before when they were together like this.

  ‘I have to agree with you, Serena,’ Kit replied, using her name easily now. It sounded so perfectly natural to Serena th
at she failed to notice it any more.

  Kit tore a piece of bread from a loaf and began eating it slowly, contemplating her profile. For most of the time he had been purposely quiet and tolerant of Serena’s capricious moods, knowing the loss of her home and her father’s plight in the Low Countries were still very fresh in her mind. But she had withstood the long journey well. He would have expected her to look pale and drawn after the long days on the road, but amazingly she seemed to thrive on it.

  Gazing at her in rueful reflection, he recalled how she had looked earlier when he found her half naked. The recollection stirred and raked the red-hot embers in his mind. She had been totally at ease and unaware of the watchful interest of his gaze. He recalled the moment when she had bent forward and the neckline of her bodice had gaped open to reveal the soft plumpness of her breasts and high peaks of the lustrous, rose-red nipples, hardened by the cold water she had splashed on her chest.

  His eyes dark and brooding, leisurely he leaned back against the rock, his memory expanding, the vision bringing a smile to his lips and a narrowing to his eyes, and he could see in his mind’s eye the look on her face when she had turned on him, her eyes as vindictive and sharp as a snipe’s beak that could pick a man’s bones clean. But now he saw how soft and flushed her face was in repose, her thick lashes making soft shadows on her cheeks and her hair a glorious halo of auburn light.

  ‘What time do you think it is?’ Serena asked, breaking into his thoughts, mercifully unaware of the direction in which they were travelling.

  ‘Around noon, I imagine. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Will we be at our destination before dark?’

  Kit frowned, glancing up at the leaden clouds hanging low over the hills and noting the strong, snow laden gusts of wind whipping across the landscape. He hoped the snow would hold off until they reached Addlington Hall, his grandmother’s old home. ‘Hopefully. If the snow holds off, that is. But the sky bodes ill. Eat as much as you can now because I don’t want to stop again.’

  Prodigiously hungry, Serena was eager to comply and unashamedly cut herself another large hunk of bread and cheese. When she was replete she went to the stream, noting the ice-crusted edges as she scooped some of the freezing water into her hands and drank. With a ghost of a smile on his lips, Kit never took his eyes off her, silently admiring and contemplating her every move.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Serena said, wiping the water from her chin with the back of her hand and resuming her perch on the boulder, a little smile dimpling her cheeks. ‘How could I ever have imagined we would become lost with you as our guide? You follow the tracks like a true native.’

  Kit grinned. ‘That’s because I am. I was born and raised in Northumberland at Minton Hall—several miles south of Coldstream on the Scottish border.’

  Serena was surprised, not realising until then that he came from the north. ‘And is that where we are going?’

  ‘No. I’m taking you to my maternal grandmother’s home, Addlington Hall, which is not quite as far north as that.’

  ‘Who lives there now?’

  ‘No one. Apart from a couple of servants my mother employs as caretakers, that is. Under the entailment and because there was no son, the house and land came to my mother on my grandmother’s death, which was quite recent.’

  ‘And will it be yours one day?’

  Kit’s expression hardened. ‘In the event of recent happenings and my assumed involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, that depends on what happens to Thurlow and if the king sees fit to redeem it to me. It became forfeit to the Crown on my arrest. I inherited Thurlow when my cousin died. My father grew up there but, being the younger of two sons, he did not inherit the estate.’

  ‘Are the Brodies not a Scottish family?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s a large family and became scattered, some going south during my great-grandfather’s time. Thurlow came into the family about then.’

  ‘And is your mother Scottish?’

  ‘Like my father, she has an equal smattering of both English and Scottish blood. When my father married her, he was fortunate that her family held many properties in the north—one of them being Minton Hall, which was where they chose to live,’ Kit explained. ‘I was very close to my maternal grandmother and spent my youth between the two houses. But much as I love Northumberland, Thurlow was where I chose to live when I inherited it from my cousin.’

  Serena looked at him curiously, realising that she did not know this man at all. He had looked so very much at home in Warwickshire that she’d imagined he’d spent all his life in the south and close to the court. Yet he seemed completely at home here in the wilds of Northumberland as well. She noted that a faraway look entered his eyes as his gaze swept down the valley.

  ‘Between a man’s intention and what actually happens, lies a distance that must be measured in fathoms,’ he said quietly, ‘which I have come to find out during these last weeks. I had planned to live each day at Thurlow in wedded bliss to Dorothea, but I soon found that this would be impossible. Events over the past weeks have prevented that.’

  ‘And if Thurlow is redeemed to you, what will become of your grandmother’s house? You cannot live in two places.’

  ‘I have a brother and a sister. Melissa is eighteen years old and lives with my mother in Edinburgh for most of the time. It’s possible that when she marries, she—or Paul, for that matter—might favour living at Addlington Hall. It depends on what my mother intends doing with the estate. I would like you to become acquainted with them while you are in the north—if it isn’t asking too much.’

  ‘No, not at all. Thank you. I would like that. And where is your brother?’

  ‘Paul is doing military service in the Low Countries.’

  ‘Like his brother before him. I can see that you love Northumberland, and I fail to understand how you can bear to leave it feeling as you do,’ said Serena, trying hard to understand, never having lived anywhere other than Dunedin Hall. Her face was puzzled. ‘How can you belong by blood to one place and yet feel at home in another? Evidently you have the ability to belong to wherever you happen to be.’

  ‘That is true. But here I can be myself.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can see that.’

  The intensity, the warmly intimate look in Kit’s dark eyes held Serena transfixed, its warmth igniting a flame within her blood. Her delicately beautiful face was framed by her halo of hair blowing in the restless wind, and the effect of Kit’s gaze was vibrant and alarmingly alive. She tried to imagine him as a boy riding these hills and fells, seeing him little different to how he looked now, with his unruly black hair blowing in the wind, riding his horse with nobility and pride, as rugged and hard as the landscape over which he rode.

  ‘No matter where I am I shall always regard Northumberland as my home,’ said Kit. Standing up and moving towards her, he grinned suddenly, sparkling devilment dancing in his eyes when he looked down into her upturned face, his heavy-lidded gaze speculative. ‘One day you will thank me for bringing you here and widening your horizons.’

  Taking her hand, Kit drew her to her feet, keeping hold of it far too long for Serena’s comfort. His warm strong grip and probing dark gaze disturbed her, making it more difficult for her to regard him as an enemy, but the arrogant self-assurance of his expression made her suddenly wary of him and she bristled. His words reminded her with harsh clarity that he was the one responsible for preventing her from going to her father in Flanders, something which had momentarily slipped her mind. Resenting his easy dismissal of her grudge against him, she found it difficult to remain civil.

  ‘I could have widened my own horizons just as well in Flanders,’ she told him sharply, her eyes sparking as she tossed her head with a flippant air and snatched her hand from his grasp. ‘With people of my own choosing. You may yet live to rue the day you insisted I accompany you to Northumberland.’

  Having roused the vixen he had come to know and love, a corner of Kit’s lips lifted roguishly and
his eyes pinned hers until he saw a flush of ire mount her cheeks. ‘Why? Do I abuse you?’ he asked. ‘Is my treatment of you so agonising that you do not take stock of your surroundings and admire and glory in them. You must forgive me,’ he chuckled softly, ‘but I was of the opinion that you were beginning to enjoy seeing Northumberland almost as much as I do myself.’

  ‘Yes, you abuse me constantly and should die of shame for bringing me here against my will,’ Serena berated him angrily. ‘And despite the beauty of the place it does not compensate for the cold and damp that is beginning to seep into my bones, numbing my mind so I can scarcely think or feel anymore. Nor do I like the discomfort of riding mile upon mile along endless tracks, fit only for goats rather than men and horses, where we may be set upon at any time and rendered helpless by outlaws.’

  ‘My dear Serena, when were you ever helpless?’ Kit laughed. ‘And God help any outlaw if they should dare attack you.’

  Anger choked any words Serena would have uttered and, turning from the amusement in his wickedly dancing dark eyes and infuriating grin, she flounced off to where they had left their horses, just as the first flurries of snow began to fall.

  Dismayed to find their horses had wandered to the other side of the fiercely tumbling stream where they were contentedly nibbling at the grass, she looked down at the water, reluctant to wade across. It was deep in places and would be sure to come over the tops of her boots, and she had no wish to continue the rest of the journey with wet feet. Calling to Polly to come back, the usually obedient horse merely glanced at her and carried on munching the grass, infuriating her further.

  Having noted that Kit’s skittish, high-spirited stallion had whickered and pranced and courted her beautiful Polly since the moment they had first become acquainted—and that the stallion’s behaviour bore an uncanny resemblance to its master—she was certain that the wicked beast had something to do with her docile mare’s change of temperament and disobedience.