The Heart Denied (35 page)

Besides, if the chambermaid found his windows covered, she'd likely suspect some kind of subterfuge afoot. Thorne made a wry face. No one but himself had been in his bed since the night Gwynneth-

He left the thought unfinished, lest the night's horror overcome him again.

* * *

The next two evenings found Thorne's windows well shielded from any prying eyes in the countryside. Both nights he kept vigil, and on both nights the woman was at her post. Although he'd peered through a mere crack to see if she was there, she seemed to sense his presence each time, turning to look at him almost immediately. And then, the smile. Of anything she could possibly have done, that was the most terrifying, the most hideous.

By the next evening he was irritable, impatient, and haggard, having snatched only short, restless periods of sleep since the day he'd awakened to find himself under the doctor's care. He'd since eaten as well as he could, more out of need than hunger as he tried desperately to keep a clear head.

But on this night, well after the moon had risen, the woman in the road surprised him. No sooner than he moved the drapery aside to look, she turned toward the house again...but this time she pressed a white rosebud to her lips. Then, lowering the blossom, she smiled...and executed a flawless curtsey.

It was that final gesture which turned Thorne's blood from freezing to boiling. He bolted from his chamber, up the gallery and down the great stairway, with no thought for appearances, his crippling fear banished by a burning determination to confront the woman, to demand her reasons for tormenting him--and more than anything, to prove to himself that she was among the living.

For everything about her--size, stance, hair and smile--told him she was none other than Gwynneth Stowington Wycliffe, the late Baroness Neville of Wycliffe.

The smell was the first thing that struck him as he came up the back lane toward the Northampton road.

The roses.

A week since, they'd been but tiny buds. Now they were open, fresh and fragrant.
Odious
.
Nauseating
. He found it hard to believe he'd taken so much satisfaction in seeing the plants set into the ground. Even the scent of damp earth was mildly disturbing now, something to which his rural blood had always quickened before.

He began counting his steps to keep from thinking; even two minutes of mindlessness would be a welcome relief. But a dog's bark and the shout of a herder alerted him to falling dusk. Despite his recovered cynicism, this stretch of road was the last place he cared to be after dark. He turned about and headed for the Hall.

Yestereve he'd felt quite foolish, tearing up the lane at breakneck speed only to round the curve and find the Northampton road deserted. For a time he'd stood still, his chest heaving and his mind running rampant as he fought the urge to howl his frustration to the sky.

Obviously he was losing his mind. Something, perhaps some sense of guilt for Gwynneth's fate, was taking him over the edge and into an abyss quite apart from that into which he'd dreaded falling with Caroline. How long could a man survive without sleep, he wondered? In this state of mind he was likely to see more and worse apparitions, which would only hasten the inevitable conclusion: if he wasn't first driven to take his life, he would wind up in Bedlam for the rest of his life, chained to a wall and put on display as a curiosity, a freak, for anyone inclined to buy a ticket for such a dubious and depraved form of entertainment.

Insane
, his mind had whispered last night as he stood there on the empty road.
Incurably insane.

And then he had spotted the rose.

Tender and white, plucked before its prime, the shriveling blossom lay where it had been dropped, in the middle of the Northampton road.

* * *

Having relieved Nate for a couple of hours while the youth went into the village to sup with his family, Arthur rounded the stables just in time to see Thorne approaching, the sun low at his back. As he drew closer, the steward noted an ominous set to the square jaw.

"Saddle Raven," was the terse order.

"But M'lord-"

"Let me be." One hand up as if to ward off a blow, Thorne strode straight to the tack wall. "I'll do it myself."

Wordlessly, Arthur watched him bridle and saddle the Arabian and lead him from his stall. Feeling fairly certain of his destination, he made one last effort to dissuade him. "M'lord, you'll find no comfort there."

Thorne leapt astride Raven and threw his cloak over the pommel before lancing the steward with a look. "Then I'll find diversion. And perhaps sleep in the bargain." He turned the prancing stallion to heel and set him off on a trot toward the back lane. "Don't expect me until you see me," he called back hoarsely, and urged his mount into a gallop.

Watching them well into the distance, Arthur shook his head and murmured, "Let sleeping dogs lie, my boy...and you needn't lie with them."

* * *

"'Tis the middle of night! And Gilbert knows I've no intention of receiving that blackguard," Caroline snapped at a sleepy-eyed Marsh. "Tell the old booby to do his duty or I'll sack his ar--I'll give him the sack." She firmly shut her door.

Moments later, Marsh was back. "Mistress," she hissed, "his lordship refuses to leave!"

The boudoir door was readily yanked open. "Does he, now? Then I'll give his bloody lordship the boot myself." Ignoring Marsh's gasp, she swept past her onto the gallery, where she all but spilled her near-naked bosom onto the polished baluster as she leaned over it and clutched it with long-nailed fingers.

"You, sir, are without shame
or
scruples to set foot in my home uninvited," she said in a ringing voice, sparing only a warning glance for the mortified Gilbert, who was standing beside their caller with nightcap in hand. "I
cannot receive you in good conscience, and I am shocked you would have the unmitigated gall to expect my hospitality!"

She tossed her head as Thorne swept off his tricorne and bowed low to her, then watched in haughty silence as he replaced it and turned to leave. Though he'd not said a word, there was something about the set of his shoulders that tugged at her meager maternal instinct.

"Wait."

Both men turned, Gilbert looking pathetically hopeful.

"Send Lord Neville up," she said coolly, then sailed toward her boudoir. "To the drawing room," she called over her shoulder. "I shall be with him presently."

She covered her scanty shift with a scarlet China silk wrapper, but thought crossly that she needn't have bothered, as her caller hardly glanced at her when she entered the drawing room. He did wait until she was seated before seating himself. Amazingly, Marsh had already lit a candelabrum and started a fire in the grate.

"Well?" Caroline folded her arms, making her breasts jut impressively. "What is so urgent you had to rouse me at such an hour?"

When there was no immediate reply, no retort, she slid the candelabra closer to Thorne's chair, then barely stifled a gasp.

The handsome, sun-bronzed face she knew so well was now pale and drawn across the prominent cheekbones, with dark hollows lurking beneath bloodshot eyes. He seemed to have aged a decade. Caroline's resentment was all but forgotten as she sprang from her seat, her silk wrapper whispering as she knelt and clasped his cold hand in the warmth of both her own. "What is it, Thorne?" She massaged his stiff fingers, anxiously searching his haggard countenance. "Tell me, for God's sake."

"Godforsaken," he rasped. "There's a good word. 'Tis what I am. And perhaps I deserve to be." He gave her a hollow, haunted look. "Caroline, I think I'm losing my mind."

"Here now," she scoffed, struggling with her own sudden fear, and rose to tug him out of the chair. With almost childlike obeisance, he followed her onto the gallery. First scouting for lurkers below, Caroline drew him into her boudoir, then closed the door and turned the key. She crossed to another door and turned the key in that one as well. Ashby was now locked in the little room adjoining, and hopefully deaf to the world.

Nothing was said as Thorne let Caroline disrobe him and guide him toward the large bed. Upon shedding her wrapper and her shift, she slid into the bed beside him and pulled him close, enfolding him in her long, sleek limbs.

"Tomorrow," she said softly. "You can tell me all about it then."

"Aye, tomorrow," he murmured, closing his eyes. "God, I need some sleep."

She slid a hand beneath the bedcovers. Finding what she sought, she surrounded it with caressing fingers, and was rewarded with Thorne's sharp intake of breath. "You will sleep this night, my lord," she whispered. "I shall see to it."

* * *

Awakening briefly before dawn, Thorne felt Caroline's arm wrapped loosely about his back. He moved his head close to hers on the pillow, where her hair was a rippling sea of silk beneath his whisker-stubbed cheek. He inhaled its fragrance, deliberately keeping his mind empty, his cares at bay, and once more found deep, dreamless sleep.

Surfacing near mid-day, he discovered a steaming bath awaited him, with several pitchers of cool water nearby to temper it. While he was soaking in the gleaming copper tub, his hostess entered with a covered tray.

"You're looking much better." She set the hot food down.

He opened one eye and smiled wickedly. "Feeling better, too."

"Yes, so I see." Caroline settled into a chair and leaned sideways on an elbow, lending a coyness to the provocative lines of her hip and cleavage. "But are you feeling well enough to tell me what last night was all about?"

He closed the eye momentarily, then opened both. "Aye...but I warn you, 'twill not be an easy dose to swallow."

She shrugged. "Try me."

Thorne matter-of-factly related events surrounding the first sighting of the woman in the road, confessing his drunken state at the time. Harder to tell were the events of the previous four nights, and even more so, his discovery of the wilted white rosebud in the Northampton road.

Caroline shifted to the other hip, frowning. "You'd stopped drinking...might it have been a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep, perhaps even by your own expectation?"

Thorne stood up, water sluicing off his bronze skin, his muscles rippling under its shine. "Aye," he conceded with a crooked smile, noting the direction of Caroline's unabashed gaze, and reached for the bath sheet. "But how do you explain the rose?"

Looking thoughtful, she watched him dry his hair and wrap the damp sheet about his waist. "Coincidence," she concluded. "You and I are far too pragmatic to entertain the idea of ghosts. But if there are such," she added dryly, "Horace has had the good grace to refrain from haunting me."

Thorne burst out laughing, and sauntered over to plant a kiss on top of her sleekly coifed head. "You're good for me, Caroline Sutherland. Not long ago, I feared the worst that could happen to me would be to fall under your spell."

"I'm no witch, Thorne." But there was an alluring gleam in her eyes. "I do not cast spells."

"The devil you don't." He tipped her chin up and gazed into the black velvet orbs. "You're a sorceress. Worse yet, one who knows her power."

It was hard to say who moved first. He only knew that he was suddenly taking her mouth like a parched man who'd stumbled upon a well, and by the time they drew apart for air, he was as stunned as she looked.

Without a word, she yanked the bath sheet from his body. His eyes flamed as she stared first at his looming arousal, then up at him through her lashes.

"Come to bed," she said, her voice husky.

He needed no coaxing. He stretched out on the bed and waited, every muscle and one organ taut with expectation.

She turned her back to him, and, with a maddening lack of haste, began pushing the tiny jet buttons through the gold-corded loops of her frock. Thorne rolled to the bed's edge to assist, but once she'd withdrawn her sleek arms from the sleeves, she deliberately slipped out of reach.

As intrigued as he was aroused, Thorne lay back again to observe. He knew she'd lowered her panniers when she stepped gracefully to one side. After the silk frock had skimmed over her sumptuous curves and fallen to the floor, she removed the pins from her hair one at a time, letting the long black tresses tumble in sections onto her back. Still without hurrying, she removed her stays, then lifted her shift up over her head.

Thorne had only a glimpse of her strong, shapely back before the entire mass of her hair cascaded down over it. He looked down at her high, round bottom, just in time to view a heart-stopping display between her thighs as she bent over and slowly peeled off her silk stockings.

"If you don't get into this bed
now
," he said tautly, "I swear I'll take you like a wild beast."

He saw her shiver, heard her involuntary sound, half moan and half taunt. "Remember, my lord, I cast spells...I can tame any beast that dares set upon me."

Her words ended in a soft cry as Thorne's hard bulk and probing warmth pressed against her from behind. "Taming," he all but growled, "is out of the question."

* * *

Thorne's glance about at the room's lengthening shadows brought little surprise. Time spent with Caroline always flew by. He brushed his lips along the length of her jaw, then smoothed her hair away from her face.

"The coffers were quite full," she murmured, looking up at him with a sultry smile. "I would have thought after last night..."

"You see?" Thorne leaned down to nuzzle the soft hollow behind her ear. "You
are
a sorceress."

She kissed his razor-stubbled cheek. "Then you are a sorcerer," she said softly, "for your spell over me is every bit as powerful."

He drew back and looked at her soberly. "You've forgiven me, then."

"Oh, Thorne." Averting her eyes, she tried to rise.

"Stay, please." When she reluctantly sank down into the pillows again, he cupped her face in one hand. "I must know. Have you forgiven me?"

She said nothing.

Wounded pride made Thorne blunt. "He'd have hung at any rate. You must know that."

Her brow furrowed slightly.

"Say you've forgiven me, that you no longer blame me."

She sighed, shaking her head. "'Tis not that simple, Thorne."

"Then I've no business being here." She made no protest as he levered himself off the bed. He dressed with his back to her, and soon heard the sounds of her own toilette.

When she'd buttoned her frock as much as possible without help, she turned to find him fully clothed and waiting.

His bow had never been more courtly. As he straightened, his bold scrutiny took her in from hem to neckline, lingering on the latter. "I thank you, Mistress Sutherland, for your bouncing...I mean to say, boundless, hospitality." His gaze shifted to meet hers. "You were more than generous with such a cold-blooded ruffian as I. I wonder you didn't slit my throat when you had me trapped between those lissome thighs of yours. Your kindness will long be remembered." He smiled jauntily. "If ever I may return the favor, you've only to appear at my door--no doubt you can find my chambers without any help from Jennings. Feel free to come and tuck me in...though not necessarily in that order."