Beloved (43 page)

He opened the case and began a clumsy attempt at removing clothes from between layers of thin paper. “I told you I will do
what a maid would do for you.”

“I think I would rather get back in the coach.”

Saber dropped a nightgown and it slid to the floor. “What?”

Ella strolled to stand beside him. She picked up the nightgown and replaced it in the trunk. “I said I should prefer to return
to the coach. I like the coach. We can instruct Potts to keep driving until we tell him to stop.”

“Ella—”

“Of course, we’d have to stop for fresh horses, and to let Potts eat and drink from time to time.”

Saber removed the gown again, very deliberately, and spread it on the bed. “And what about our need to eat and drink, madam?
Would we not get a little refreshment from time to time?” The old humor had stolen back into his voice.

“Not until we were too exhausted to continue with more satisfying activities.” She looked up into his eyes. “I love making
love to you, Saber.”

He drew her to him and kissed her.

S
he knew he had left her—yet again.

Ella rolled over and pressed her hand into the cold pillow where his head had rested.

“Saber?” Pushing her hair from her eyes, she sat up and peered into the darkness.

This was the fifth night they’d spent at Bretforten Manor. The fifth night in which she and Saber had loved until Ella had
fallen into a happy, drained sleep. The fifth night on which she’d awakened to find him gone.

Each morning he’d appeared, withdrawn and almost shy, to help her dress. Their days passed with Saber closed away in a small
library, while Ella tried to make conversation with the pleasant but reticent Mrs. Gabbler, who very efficiently provided
for her master and mistress’s needs.

On the morning after they’d arrived, Ella tried to tell Saber how bereft she’d felt to find he’d deserted her bed. He’d told
her, in very few words, that there were things best left unsaid.

Things must change.

“And there are things that
shall
be said, husband,” she told the empty room—and felt encouraged by the sound of her angry voice. “I shall say them, and you
shall listen to them.”

She climbed from the bed and pulled on the beautiful lace robe Great-Grandmama had given her. “Where are you, you rogue? How
dare you be so wonderful, then be so perfectly horrid?”

Carrying a candle, Ella ventured from the room and started along the passageway that led toward the front of the house. “I
am not afraid,” she said loudly. “I have never been afraid of darkness, or being alone. Saber? Saber, where are you?”

Not even an echo responded.

“Very well, I shall simply have to hunt you down.”

Ella hunted through one empty room after another. Most doors she opened revealed the draped shapes of furnishings; no room
revealed any sign of Saber.

Her anger mounted. He had pledged to share his life with her, yet he’d chosen to exclude a very large part of that life. “But
I’m going to claim it all, Saber,” she muttered.

A fluttering fear turned her hands cold. Where
was
he? “Saber?” If he heard her, he’d answer, probably with a bellow of fury. “Saber, where are you?” she cried as roundly as
her lungs would allow.

No sign of him anywhere.

A corridor she’d never taken before led to several rooms where the drapes had been removed from the furniture. One of the
rooms was a bedchamber.

Ella entered slowly. Curtains at the windows were open wide, but no moon shone through the glass. The dying embers of a fire
cast a faint, reddish glow.

She made out Saber’s trunks and looked at once to the bed. With one hand at her throat, she approached on tiptoe.

Her breath escaped slowly. Tangled bedding had been thrown back. On a chest beside the bed lay Saber’s watch and chain—and
something crumpled and pale.

Ella looked closely, and swallowed. One of the flowers she’d worn in her hair at their wedding. She hadn’t known he’d taken
it.

“Foolish man! All men are foolish! Silly creatures afraid of their own hearts.” She picked up the flower and held it to her
cheek. “Ooh, you will have to deal with the raw edge of your wife’s temper, my good man.”

Also on the chest sat a familiar brass box. Curiously, Ella lifted the lid, and remembered at once where she’d seen it before.
Military buttons, all the same, lay inside. She took several into her palm. Why would a man bring such a thing on his wedding
journey?

She snorted. Why would a man keep sneaking away from his new wife on his wedding journey? Lord Avenall was a puzzle.

And the biggest puzzle of all was his current location. She set down the flower and slid open a drawer in the chest. Raising
the candle higher, Ella grimaced at the sight of three glowing emeralds in the handle of a wretched dagger.

Hateful dagger. Why would he take it everywhere he went?

The questions would go unanswered unless she asked them of him. To do so, she must find him. And she would.

She took up her search on the lower floor, shouting Saber’s name as she went. The notion to arouse Potts came and went with
equal speed. What must be done, she would do alone.

But she could not find her wretched husband!

Desperation raised every hair on her body. Her scalp prick-led. Perspiration dampened her back. All that remained were the
kitchens.

Aware of cold striking up from stone, Ella opened a door into the pantry—and a chill draft plucked at the hem of her robe
and gown.

The candle blew out and she set it down. The door to the kitchen garden stood wide open.

“Rattle-brained man,” she said, but her voice broke and her teeth chattered together. “Walking around in the wind and rain,
no doubt. And in the dark.”

Perhaps he’d heard something outside and gone to investigate.

Ella wiggled her toes inside insubstantial slippers. She should go back for some half-boots—and sturdy clothing.

He could not be far away. He might even be within her sight—once she looked outside. And he might be in trouble and need her
help.

The rain remained fine, but fell more densely. A cold wind had picked up. Trees bent and whined beneath its force and the
rain slanted sideways. Ella wiped at her eyes and ducked her head to peer in all directions.

“You are beyond all, Lord Avenall. Absolutely beyond all.” She set off toward the abandoned apiary, along a path between rosebushes
laden with blooms she’d admired by day. Tomorrow their petals would be strewn and ruined.

When she reached the churchyard that flanked the property, Ella retraced her footsteps before setting off across the lawns.

Every breath tore at her throat now.

She began to run. “Saber?” Where could he be? “Saber!” The wind threw her words back at her. The rain soaked her clothes and
wound them about her.

He could have fallen into the lake!

Sobbing, hearing the rough rasp of her breathing, she headed for the water.

If she hadn’t seen the glimmer of his white shirt, she’d likely have run on until she bumped into him.

Wet hair clung to her head and lay in sodden heaps over her shoulders. Gasping, she stopped. Her arms hung limp at her sides,
and she fought to be calm. The buttons she’d forgotten to replace in their box cut into her palm.

The lake captured what light there was and Saber stood over that light, his cloak billowing behind him. Ella had caught sight
of his shirtsleeve as he reached to gather the heavier garment around him.

She opened her mouth but could not bring herself to shout his name, even though he would surely hear her now.

“Saber,” she whispered. “What troubles you, my love?”

He stared over the shifting surface of the lake, a tall, shadowy figure unbowed by wind and rain.

Ella crept closer until a thick rhododendron bush shielded her from him. She parted branches and watched.

Saber’s profile showed dark against the lake’s reflected light. She thought he swayed, but could not be certain.

He stared downward into the water.

Surely he didn’t intend to…

Saber walked backward and she breathed again.

He walked backward until he reached a willow. He sank to the ground beneath swaying branches, and leaned against the trunk.

“Saber,” she whispered again, her eyes filling with tears. He was troubled, deeply troubled, yet he would not share that trouble
with her. He preferred to come out into the unkind night—alone—and suffer whatever devils attacked him.

She hovered, uncertain whether to go to him or return to the house and never let him know what she’d seen.

He moved, slowly, heavily. Slowly he fell to his side, then, heavily, he rolled to his back and lay with his arms outstretched.

“Oh,” Ella murmured. “The very idea. Oh, this is the veriest… Oh, my goodness.”

Bound by her wet nightclothes, she left the cover of the rhododendron and trod over squelching turf toward her supine husband.

Her supine,
stupid
husband.

He gave no sign of hearing her approach. But the wind would have made that difficult.

He did not turn his head toward her, even when she stood inches from his hand.

His eyes were closed.

The front of his shirt, open to the waist, gaped.

Rain, fiercer and wilder now, beat his face and body. He did not as much as flinch.

Ella dropped to her knees on the muddy grass, knelt at his shoulder, and squinted closely at him.

His chest rose and fell steadily. His thick, dark lashes were wet, unmoving spikes. He slept, slept deeply. In the wind and
the rain, beneath a dripping tree, beside a lake—in the earliest hours of the morning, Saber Avenall, Earl of Avenall,
slept
.

“Oh, Saber,” she murmured, and bent over him. She rested her cheek on his bared shoulder.

“Get back!” he shouted, so suddenly, so savagely, she screamed.

She had no time to cry out again.

Saber shot an arm around her shoulders and swung her across his body. “Not again!” he yelled. “You shall not have more of
them!”

Ella fought. She struggled to grasp his collar. “Saber! It’s me, Ella!”

They rolled, over and over, toward the lake, and Ella grappled with him. She kicked and wound her legs around his hips. “Saber!
Stop it!”

His fingers curled into the neck of her robe and gown, and he said, “It is my place,” in a deep, harsh tone. “I will do what
I must do.” He ripped her clothing apart, bared her breasts, bared her body from neck to hip.

Willow branches lashed across Saber’s back and Ella’s face. She flinched, and pummeled his shoulders. The wind and rain were
a roaring scourge.

“You’re hurting me!”

As abruptly as he’d attacked her, he grew still—utterly still. He said, “Oh, my God,” very softly.

Pinned beneath him, Ella stared up into his face. His hair fell forward and his eyes glinted. “Saber, what is it? What’s wrong
with you?”

“Nothing,” he told her, and the fury of the gathering storm edged the word. “Why are you here? Why are you creeping around
after me?”

“Because …” Why
was
she here? Why
was
she creeping around after him? “I did not creep. I ran and shouted. I searched the whole house. When there was nowhere else
inside to search, I came out here to look for you.”

“Why?”

“Why?” She managed to push her hands above her head. Filling her fingers with his hair, she said, “I ran looking for you,
through the house and out into the wind and rain, because I am married to a fool.”

“I beg your pardon, madam?”

“Do not presume to beg anything of me, my lord. It is I who will demand. Not beg, but demand. What sends you from my bed the
moment I am asleep?”

Saber gently freed her fingers from his hair. “It’s usual for a man and his wife to sleep in separate bedrooms, my love.”

She wriggled and bucked—to no avail. “Except when the man wishes to…to…Well, when he wishes to. Then, when he has done so,
he sneaks away? Why should it be so?”

“Ella… There are things you don’t understand.”

“You
keep
telling me that. So why don’t you explain?”

Saber shifted his weight from her and rested his head on a hand. “I’ve wanted to,” he said, very low. “How I’ve wanted to.”

So there was something. “Then tell me now. Let me help.”

“I cannot be helped—only given protection.”

“Protection?” Her mind refused to work. “What …? Protection from what, Saber?”

“Those who would… Oh, Ella, I have wronged you.”

The rain grew even heavier. Ella welcomed its cold bite upon her face. Their two soaked bodies drew heat, one from the other.
She felt every inch of his solid muscles, every inch of his skin against hers. “You cannot have wronged me,” she told him.
“You have rescued me.”

“There is so much I want to tell you, and I will,” he said. “I shall ask much of you, Ella.”

“And I will give much. I’ll give you all that I am.”

He kissed her then, a soft, fleeting kiss at first, a slipping of his lips across hers, a trail of salty tenderness. Then
the kiss changed. His lips grew harder, more insistent as his tongue probed her mouth.