Suzanne Robinson (13 page)

That night Alexis fell asleep contemplating what he called his Miss Grey Strategy, after getting little cooperation from Val in its planning. His next awareness was of someone shaking him. He bolted upright, shooting a fist toward his attacker, then heaving to throw the body off him.

“Bloody hell!”

Alexis stopped fighting. “Val?”

Fully dressed and with a bleeding lip, Val pulled himself off Alexis. He sat on the bed and touched the back of his hand to his mouth.

“I was on my way to get a book from the library and heard you moan,” Val said. “I don’t sleep at all; you sleep but get no rest. We’re a pair.”

Alexis sat still, his chest heaving. He flexed the hand that had hit Val. At his silence, Val got up and started to leave.

“Val.”

The young man turned around.

“Merci, mon ami.”

“N’importe,”
Val said as Alexis stood up. “Where are you going?”

“It’s almost dawn.”

“Alexis, no.”

“Rotten luck that you’re not well enough to come along.”

Val limped back to Alexis. “Don’t go. You haven’t done this since we came home. Don’t start.”

Alexis was already pulling on trousers. “You once told me I was the best horseman in England.”

“When you’re not trying to outrun sunlight.”

Alexis concentrated on tugging on a boot so he wouldn’t have to answer. He stuffed his shirt into his trousers and called to Val’s retreating figure. “Don’t try sending someone after me. It won’t do any good, and I’ll make you pay afterward.”

A slammed door was the only response he got.

Kate had found what she called the “back gate” to Castle Richfield. Not a gate like she was used to, of course, but a massive thing flanked by two defensive towers and stopped up by a drawbridge. It led to a path that in turn led to the stables. After the previous night’s quarrel with the marquess about Maitland House, she wanted to escape high walls and gilt paneling. He’d given her a new worry.

Mutilated, mutilated, mutilated.
The marquess’s description of the men at the Dower House kept rattling around in her head like acorns shaken in a cardboard box. It was his fault that she was going to have to change her mind. And what made things worse was that she couldn’t detest him nearly so well now that she suspected him of having a heart. A generous, caring heart didn’t belong inside a snake.

Late the night before she’d visited the marquess’s invalid home. Unwilling to admit
he’d impressed her, she had walked into the house unaccompanied and introduced herself to a nurse.

“Most of the cholera cases don’t make it back to England,” the woman told her. “His lordship says that so many died so quickly, they had to throw the bodies in the harbor. He says that his men had to keep their horses saddled and their clothes on for days at a time.” The nurse gestured to a gaunt man resting in a chair. “That’s why disease takes them so quickly. They’re worn to nothing before they even get sick.”

“But why?” Kate squeezed her hands together and tried not to look at a man being brought in on a stretcher. He had no legs.

“Why the waste, do you mean?” The nurse smiled. “His lordship told us the army hasn’t been reorganized since Wellington fought Napoleon. Inefficiency is rampant. He said the officers had only biscuits and salt pork, and little of that, to live on. And they had to use doors and furniture for firewood. The men’s food was worse, and that was before they were wounded.”

“How many?” Kate asked. Her mouth was dry from shock. “How many dead?”

“I don’t know, miss. Thousands and thousands. All I know is that his lordship said that the Russians made a point of shooting officers, all that gold and the brilliant uniforms, you know. And the officers ride in front of their men. They’re mounted, and they’re in front, so the Russians have good targets. His lordship told me that Debrett’s is being wiped out.”

“Debrett’s?”

“The roll of peers, miss. The officers, the young noblemen. Soon we won’t have any left.”

Kate had quitted the Dower House feeling as small as a tick, and as admirable. So now she had to change her answer to the marquess, and she was certain he’d gloat.
Oh well, Mama and Aunt Emeline would enjoy a house full of soldiers to mother.

Kate felt relieved of guilt, too, and her reward was a ride. Not a Lady’s ride. A real bone-jarring, sweaty frontier kind of ride. For that she was dressed in a split skirt, her jacket was unbuttoned at the throat, and she wore no silly hat that would fly off. She’d tied her pesky hair at the nape of her neck. She was going to have fun this morning.

As the stable buildings came into view, Kate heard a sound behind her.
Crunch crunch tap. Tap crunch crunch.
Hard-soled shoes on the sandy surface of the path. She looked over her shoulder, veered back the way she’d come, and latched onto the arm of that troubled young man, Valentine Beaufort.

“Hold up, Mr. Beaufort. You’re going to fall if you don’t get below locomotive speed.”

Beaufort leaned hard on his cane and panted. Kate noted the pallor of his skin and the perspiration that coated his forehead and cheeks.

“I’ll—damn. Pardon.” He breathed in deeply. “Never make it.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It isn’t a matter for your concern, though I thank you, Miss Grey.”

“Must be pretty important for you to risk breaking your neck on this grit.” She fished in her pocket for a handkerchief. Finding one, she dabbed at Beaufort’s forehead.

Val submitted for a few moments, then pulled away. “Never in my life has a lady wiped my face for me. Is this an American custom?”

“Sorry. I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I have an excuse. I have two brothers who used to need a lot of cleaning up. You aren’t listening.”

He inspected her skirt and boots. “You were going riding.” He chewed his lip and studied Kate. “Someday
he’s going to tease the Devil once too often. This could be the day. Miss Grey, could I beg a favor of you?”

Kate listened to him, but found Val’s concern hard to credit. If the marquess wanted to jump fences no one else took, that was his prerogative. However, she was going to be out anyway, and the poor man looked so distressed that she promised to take the route he’d outlined and watch for Alexis de Granville. She didn’t tell him she already knew part of the way from her excursions with Ophelia.

Reassuring Val that, yes, she could ride quickly, Kate set out to hunt down a snake. Judging from his head start, she would be able to intercept him in the valley below the Tower. If she rode at a gallop, she could stop him before he took that impossible leap across Fleet’s Ditch. She took a shortcut over the hills to the next valley and cantered out onto flat land in time to see a black shooting star race past. She was already at a gallop by the time she moved into position behind the flying figure. Standing in her stirrups, she whistled to her gelding. He was a quarter horse, a “quarter miler” with a little Thoroughbred in him, and he was going to run down the marquess’s hunter like a stampeded heifer.

Ahead, all she could see was a black tail and a lithe, straining man’s body. Closing in, Kate pulled to the left, whistled again, and felt her gelding surge forward. She drew even with the marquess and shouted at him.

“Morning.”

He didn’t answer. His face was dripping sweat. Dark hair streamed back from his face and his eyes scoured the ground ahead. There was a light in them she didn’t like, and a lack of color to his flesh. He rode as though he and the horse were the same beast, but she could see his muscles straining. She shouted again, louder.

“Morning!”

His head jerked in her direction. Until that moment she wouldn’t have believed him oblivious to her. Yet he
had been. It was obvious from the way he loosened the tension on his reins. At once his horse began to slow. The marquess abruptly looked away from her to watch the ground in front of him. They slowed to a trot without speaking. Finally they were able to ease into a walk. Over her own labored breathing, Kate could hear him gasping for air. He was drenched, and his horse was too.

“What are you doing here?” he managed to ask.

“I was riding and saw you. I thought I’d tell you I changed my mind.”

“Who told you where I was? Was it Val?”

“Oh, of course. I’ve got nothing better to do than chase all over the countryside for a demented man who thinks it’s exciting to risk his horse’s life for entertainment.”

She pulled her horse to a stop because the marquess had. He was gawking at her.

“You’re riding astride, like a man.”

“I’m riding astride like a woman.”

“We’re going back before someone sees you,” the marquess said. He nudged her horse with his knee and herded her along. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

Kate lifted her eyes to the sky.

“It’s so unmaidenly, so improper.”

“You’re mad ’cause I caught you,” she said.

She looked down her nose—a short distance—at the marquess. He was studying her. His gaze slid from her face to her chest, to her hips, and back to her chest. She snorted and stared out at the hills they were approaching.

“You did catch me,” he said. “I’ve never been caught before. What is that you’re riding?”

“Quarter horse.”

“Ride him sidesaddle from now on.”

“No.”

“That was a command, Miss Grey.”

“I know, Mr. de Granville.”

She could hear him grind his teeth. He was madder than a caged raccoon. She grinned.

“No one,” the marquess said. “No one has ever addressed me as ‘Mr.’ before.”

“Don’t like it? All right, I’ll think of something else. How about ‘stuffy’ or ‘prude’? They fit with your high-minded objections to my personal habits.”

“Prude!”

The marquess made a grab for her. She dodged him and kicked her horse. He chased after her all the way back to the stables. She was lucky his horse was tired, or he would have caught her. She could tell he was still angry when she handed over her mount to a groom. De Granville dismounted and hurled his reins at an attendant, then stalked around his horse toward her. Another groom waylaid him with a question, and Kate left. She walked down the path to the castle without bothering to see if she was followed. She had rounded a bend when she was hauled off the path and into the bordering grove of trees.

Stumbling along in the wake of the man who had captured her, she caught a glimpse of bright black hair. It was the marquess.

“Let me go,” she said.

He paid no attention. He pulled her after him into a clearing, and she saw the tree stump he was heading for. A suspicion flitted into her mind, and rebellion exploded when she heard him snap at her.

“The little savage needs some respect whipped into her.”

De Granville reached the stump, sat, and hauled her over his lap. Kate was ready. Instead of resisting, she plunged over his knees with her head down. When the marquess brought his arms down across her back and thighs, she kept going. Before he could stop her, she bent close to his thigh, opened her jaws, and bit.

His yowl was quite satisfying. It was worth the embarrassment
of the attempted spanking. De Granville yanked at her hair, then shoved her off his lap and onto the ground. Kate landed on her bottom and bounced to her feet, ready for his next attack.

It never came, for the marquess was sitting on the stump nursing his thigh and cursing. He lifted furious eyes to her.

“You almost drew blood, damn you.”

“Stupid man.” She put her hands on her hips to conceal their trembling. “You should think about the consequences of your actions. When I was a girl I faced the dangers of the Overland Trail. Indian ambushes, drunken miners, besotted gamblers. Do you really think I’d let you abuse me? That’s what you’d have to do, you know, to give me a spanking. You’d have to hold me down so hard you’d turn my skin black and blue. And I’d fight. You’d be the one to draw blood. Or is that what you wanted all along?”

De Granville stared at her, rubbing his thigh absently. Without warning he stood up and captured her hand. She tried to pull free, but he brought the hand to his mouth. It was the merest brush of warm lips to cold skin.

“I am ashamed,” he said. “I beg your forgiveness, for your distaste for me falls immeasurably short of that I have for myself.”

To her own surprise, Kate believed him. She could see the unhappiness in his eyes. She didn’t like to see those eyes full of sadness.

Freeing her hand, she rubbed her upper arms and shrugged. “I’m sorry I called you a prude. From what Ophelia said you’re certainly not—Oh!”

His soft laugh did nothing to lessen her chagrin. Kate tried to bolt. He dodged around to stand in front of her, grinning.

“Miss Grey, being with you is like downing shots of whiskey one after another. Shall we forgive each other, then?”

What was different? Kate wondered, confused. Perhaps it was because he was standing so close. Her vision was filled with long legs and muscles that made subtle curves in his thighs. She focused on the warm skin at the base of his throat, revealed by his open shirt.

She wet her lips. “Yes, forgiveness is a good idea.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the marquess said.

“Done what?”

“This.” He lowered his head and touched his tongue to her lips. He whispered to her, “You shouldn’t have done it, but I thank God you did.”

She had plenty of warning. He gathered her in his arms slowly, and she could have avoided him. She didn’t want to.

He put his mouth against hers and proceeded to try to swallow it. She loved the warm wetness, the softness of his lips, the way he sucked rhythmically like a small pump at the tissues of her mouth. Then she realized the significance of that rhythm, for his hips were repeating it against her own. A hot stinging sensation built at the juncture of her thighs. She was hot, and her breasts were tingling again. That was when her brain, what was left of it, went to sleep. As her mind dozed, her body woke, and she pressed her hips to those that teased her.

He quit trying to devour her mouth and ran his tongue down her neck. Kate had never held a man before. It didn’t matter. Her hands knew what would feel good. She slipped them under his jacket and rubbed his chest through his damp shirt. In response, he grasped her buttocks and ground their hips together.