Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01] (26 page)

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Authors: Desperately Seeking a Duke

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]
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Morning rose over the shabby little inn yard. Rafe watched it from the window of their room, not really seeing the cloud-shrouded sun as it peeked over the stable roof or the way the mist-edged yard began to fill with activity.
He leaned with one hand braced high on the window frame, wearing nothing but his trousers and a piece of toweling around his neck. Phoebe slept in the bed behind him, exhausted and spent from the passion of the night and perhaps from the strain of the last week as well.
He’d risen sleepless from that bed hours ago, for there was no halting the thoughts that swirled through his mind. Blame, for one. Regret. Joy. One hole in his heart had healed, but another had opened. The future … that he could scarcely bear to let his mind light upon.
Yet, with the fever of his passion now abated—somewhat, he thought with a rueful half-smile—it was past time to face the cold truth of what his actions had wrought.
He pushed away from the window, the cheerful scenery below suddenly unbearable. He crossed to the rustic washstand and tossed the towel down by the pitcher and bowl there.
He’d thought it would be over when he won her, but he’d been wrong.
It had only just begun.
He closed his eyes against the self-loathing that rose within him. He had stepped over a line that even at his lowest he’d somehow never really believed he could cross. Somewhere deep inside him he’d clung to the hope that he was, or at least someday could be, an honorable man.
He looked into the small, age-spotted mirror, blind to the haggard eyes and the purpling bruises that distorted his features. He saw nothing there but a man who would betray his only brother.
He began to dress absently, pulling on the shirt that smelled just a bit of her soap, finding his boots flung into a far corner. He took care not to look at the woman—his woman—in the bed, for he feared that if she knew his true feelings of loss and despair that she would blame herself …
The only hope for him to reclaim a bit of that honor was to make a clean breast of it all to his brother, face-to-face. He didn’t want to. He’d rather have stolen Phoebe away into the night, hidden far away, and lived out his days without owning up to what he’d done to the only person who had ever given a damn whether he lived or died.
He certainly hoped that Calder would dish out a beating because he really ought to be required to pay for what he’d done.
The second-oldest sin in the recorded world. Brother against brother—the wickedest battle, the one that no one wins. It was likely that Calder would never forgive him.
“No,” he said aloud, “but we all knew that, didn’t we?”
“Who are you talking to?” Phoebe’s sleepy voice came from the bed. He turned.
She was watching him mangle his cravat. Her eyes were wide and dark, with circles beneath them betraying the few hours she’d slept, and the flush on her cheeks betraying the reason why.
She’d never looked more beautiful than at that moment,
sleepy and mussed and tangled in the sheets with her softly rounded limbs splayed in innocently awkward sensuality, like a newborn colt’s. His heart thudded dangerously at the sight of her.
He smiled at her in the mirror as he beat his cravat into some sort of submission. “I’m going to have to learn how to do this myself,” he told her, a teasing note in his voice. “I don’t think Calder will be continuing my allowance after I see him today.”
Worry flashed across her expression. “Do you think he is very hurt?”
“At losing you?”
It would kill me.
Rafe looked down to hide the flare of guilt in his own eyes. “I shouldn’t think it too much worse than damaged pride.” He turned to her, his hands spread wide. “There. How did I do?”
She smiled wanly. “I think I had better fix that.” She rose to her knees, keeping the sheet demurely in place. Luckily, she needed both hands to fix his neckwear, so he managed to have her naked and panting by the time she was done. At last she put both hands to his weskit and pushed him away.
The chill of missing her warmth sent a feeling of foreboding through him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her back.
“Let’s never leave this room,” he begged. “To hell with the world. We’ll take trays of food at the door and never leave the bed!”
She tilted her head to gaze at him sympathetically. “We cannot hide from what we’ve done, my love. I would go with you, but I think that might make matters worse.” She gave him a last kiss and gently pulled her hand free.
“If you’re going to go, you’d better leave before that cravat ends up wrapped around the chandelier again.”
She was laughing again, the way he’d meant to leave her. He’d almost made it out the door when she stopped him one last time.
“Rafe …”
He turned. She’d covered herself once more, but her gaze was naked and vulnerable. “You’ll come straight back?”
He strode back to the bed where she sat very properly erect on her knees, oddly dignified in her mussed and many-times-violated state. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her long and hard. She melted into him, the way she always did, so damned wholeheartedly.
I love you. I’m going to marry you and live in blissful exile forever.
No. When he came back, his honor washed as clean as it might be, then he would bring his ring and bestow it upon her properly, as she deserved.
He forced himself to pull away.
“If I’m going to go, I must go now.”
She managed a near-smile. “Of course. Poor Calder. I will survive until you return this afternoon.”
Phoebe remained where she was as she watched Rafe depart the room. Then she tried to recapture the warmth of him by climbing back into bed. The room looked remarkably shabby in daylight—reminding her of the last time she spent the night in an inn.
He’s left you.
She smiled slightly as she scoffed at herself. What a ridiculous thought.
Awake permanently now, she slid out of bed. She wrapped the coverlet around her to ward off the chill. The day was gray and misty out, but it would warm soon.
Rafe was riding away.
She pressed her nose to the wavering glass. Was it Rafe? It could be any man—any man who was tall and dark haired and well dressed in a blue surcoat and rode a rented black horse with four white stockings …
He’s left you, just like Terrence did.
She straightened and turned away from the window and the view of the road which had been empty for several minutes now. Rafe would be back. A man like Rafe would never abandon a lady in an inn!
You’re not a lady. A lady would never sleep with her fiancé’s brother.
Calder was no longer her fiancé. She’d broken the engagement before she’d permitted Rafe to—
Permitted? More like ravaged the fellow against his will! Are you
sure
you’re a lady?
Inside her mind, Phoebe took a riding crop to the voice, humiliated it, and drove it out of town. Rafe would be back. He loved her. He had fought for her. He was hers and she was his.
She waited, but blessed silence reigned.
Letting the coverlet slide from her shoulders, she went to where someone had kindly left her somewhat less muddy clothing in a neatly folded pile—Rafe!—and dressed. She fixed her hair as best she could, pinning up the front with the few pins she could find on the carpet, letting the back fall nearly to her waist. Her gown was creased and dirty, the sleeve still torn but Phoebe only sat herself regally in the single chair to wait for Rafe to return.
For he
would
return. Of that she had no doubt.
AS CALDER STRODE through his second favorite china factory, having just laid the first brick in the replacement kiln he’d ordered built, he was stopped by a familiar looking young man in Brookhaven livery.
“My lord!”
“Hello … er …”
“Stevens, my lord.”
“Yes, Stevens, what is it? Is everything well at Brook House?”
The young fellow looked nervous. He dug into his coat to pull out a folded paper. “She said I was to bring it straight to you, and I did, my lord. I rode all night.”
“She?”
Stevens swallowed. “Miss Millbury, my lord.”
Calder grunted. He had more important matters to tend to. “Is she here?”
“No, my lord. She’s …”
Something in the footman’s voice made Calder look at him sharply. “Where is she?” he said, his voice low and hard.
Stevens paled. “Blue Goose Inn, on the road toward Bath, my lord.”
He took a step back as Calder flipped the page open and began to read.
Dear Lord Brookhaven,
I ought to have told you at once, before we set about this betrothal in earnest, but I made a terrible mistake …
Calder read the letter carefully. Then he crumpled it in his fist until his knuckles whitened.
It was happening again.
“Stevens!” He looked around him, but the footman was gone.
Apparently, fleeing him was becoming contagious.
After she washed and dressed, Phoebe visited the driver, Afton.
He lay in his bed, looking like a prunish child in the vast borrowed nightshirt. His head was bandaged and his face bruised, but he’d fared no worse than a serious concussion.
“To be sure, miss,” he assured her worriedly. “We didn’t go far, but we was set upon as soon as we’d turned the bend and lost the light of the carriage lanterns. I’m shamed to say I went down like a felled tree—didn’t make account of meself at all.”
Phoebe patted Afton’s hand. “You couldn’t have known. And his lordship and I came away well enough. You bore the worst of it, I fear.”
“Oh, don’t you worry none, miss. I’ll be set to drive you and himself back right soon.” He tried to stir but his eyes lost their focus and he fell back against the cushions. “Or might be I’ll let Stevens drive,” he gasped.
Phoebe pressed cool water on him and sat at his bedside until the headache had eased and he’d fallen asleep.
By the clock in the main inn room, that had absorbed only a few hours of her morning. She spent another hour brushing the worst of the mud from her gown and petticoats. Then she thought to order a full hot bath, for surely it would do her good to relax away the tension of waiting.
She was out of the bath within a quarter of an hour, unable to sit still. She dried her hair by the fire and braided it. Then she brushed it out and twisted it into a knot at the back of her neck. Then she took that out and experimented with a crown of braids. This consumed a mere half hour.
There was nothing to worry about. It would take Rafe hours to ride there and back, although not as long as the carriage ride had been.
And anyway, it wasn’t as if Calder would actually harm Rafe—or at least not permanently. They might argue for a while. She could definitely imagine someone throwing a blow. There might even be a bit of a brawl …
An hour later she was positively twitchy with impatience, unable to do anything but pace from the bed to the window and back again. Rafe had said he’d hurry back—
Terrence hadn’t even said goodbye. She’d looked out her window to see him racing away on his rented nag, sans saddle or even his coat!
Which had no relevance to the present situation, of course. What a silly notion to cross her mind right now! She laughed away the sick lurch that the memory of Terrence’s desertion always caused. He’d done her a great service by fleeing the scene of her seduction. If he hadn’t, she would be Mrs. LaPomme at this very moment, trying to sweep under her layabout husband’s dirty boots!
She laughed again, thinking of Rafe’s sedate departure and the longing glance he’d cast over his shoulder before he’d turned the bend in the road. It was quite the reverse of Terrence’s desertion!
Unfortunately, the eternal stretch of the day made it very difficult to remember that. Noon came and went. Afternoon lengthened interminably into an endless evening. Her spirits collapsed every time she heard booted feet in the hall, yet he did not come. She tried to rally, she truly
did, but eventually the words she repeated to herself ceased to carry meaning and became only sounds.
The inn’s chambermaid entered with coal for the fire, but the glow did nothing to dispel the growing chill within Phoebe.
Where was he? Being that she’d never observed a conversation with Calder that took more than three minutes and contained more than fifty words in total, she doubted that he and Rafe had whiled the day away in a heart-to-heart.
Unless there had been drinking.
Her spirits rose slightly at the thought. Spirits did tend to make men forget where they were supposed to be.
Until she recalled that Calder never partook, not a single drop of it, not even beer.
As the evening came to full night, she began to feel the cold presence of real worry. Lateness might be inexcusable, but to not come at all? Something terrible must have happened to him!
Should she rally the inn staff for a search? Rafe could be injured, thrown from his horse in a ditch—a ditch anywhere between here and Brook House! She added handwringing to her pacing and began to chew her nails for good measure.
Then she heard it, that familiar brisk stride—that decisive clop of fine boots on worn wood of the hall floor—
It wasn’t until she flew to open the door that she remembered why that stride was so familiar.
It wasn’t Rafe who stood there, glowering at her from his great height.
It was Calder, who did not look as though he’d spent the day coming to any sort of resolution with his traitorous brother.
“Where is he?” Calder growled. “Where is the conniving bride-stealing bastard?”

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