I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (26 page)

A man in love did not abandon a woman. Twice. But Taliesin’s love had been calf love only, and after that no love at all. Only lust. She wished she could separate the two as handily as he did.

Robin bid her adieu with a fervent kiss on the back of her hand. She went into her bedchamber and opened a hollow book in which Ravenna used to store dried frogs on occasion. Now it contained only a man’s gold ring with a glowing ruby set over a peculiar T-shaped symbol. Closing her palm around it, she gathered her cloak and left the house.

The spring air was fresh against her cheeks. She would leave for Combe tomorrow. She had already instructed Betsy to pack her traveling trunk. Like Robin and Fanny, Mr. Treadwell had also lingered in St. Petroc, with the reason that the duchess had commanded him to remain in her service as long as Eleanor wished. But Eleanor suspected he didn’t want to leave without Betsy.

It suited her. St. Petroc was no longer her home. She had remained in this place overflowing with memories she now wished to discard only because of Fanny and Robin. Fanny would not hate her for refusing her brother; she was too kind. But if Robin truly intended to repeat his offer, she might as well leave now before he got in the habit of it.

She saddled Saint George, acutely aware of the bay mare with four white socks in the adjacent stable. Taliesin had left Iseult. He could not possibly intend her as a gift; the mare was far too fine and he must know that the vicar of St. Petroc could not afford to keep such an animal. Eleanor could not help seeing Iseult in the same vein as the message he had left in the book eleven years ago: as a consolation.

She didn’t want a consolation. She wanted freedom. Freedom from pain and regret and doubt and wanting what she would never have. She wanted to begin again, not with a temporary adventure, but forever. This time on her own terms.

Drawing Saint George from his stall, she mounted and rode to the squire’s property. Then she rode past it. Finally she reached the wood where she hadn’t gone in a decade, not since she stopped crying on her pillow every night.

One final deed must be done before she would begin anew entirely. Now that she had refused her prince, she could do it.

Reining in her horse at the edge of the wood, she peered into the shadows. Budding with spring green, it looked entirely different than it had that sweltering summer day eleven years ago. Now it seemed pale and passionless.

She reached into her pocket and palmed the ring.

Lifted her arm.

She froze.

If she were going to do this right, she mustn’t see where it went. Closing her eyes and turning her back on the trees, she prayed it wouldn’t bounce off a trunk and right back at her. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Arabella would murder her for this. But Arabella had already wed her prince charming, and Ravenna hers. She already knew what she must about the symbol for Arabella to continue searching for their family if she wished. The ring itself was now only a burden, bound to a ridiculous fortune it was high time she discarded.

There would be no prince for her of any sort. There would instead be eccentric maiden Auntie Eleanor who occasionally hared off on larks and possibly, hopefully, got herself into dreadful trouble. Adventures needn’t involve half-naked men to be exciting, and she had many places she wished to explore, many books yet to read, many plays to see, many monuments to visit. She would not have children of her own, which surrounded her soul with a bottomless ache. But she would enjoy her sisters’ children, and she would never again lack courage now that her life was hers to determine—not her papa’s or her sisters’ or some foolish prophecy’s.

She lifted her arm again, this time with determination. Hoof beats sounded in the distance. She opened her eyes and her heart fell into the soles of her boots.

Taliesin rode toward her.

Desperation clawed at her.
This
was not part of her plan. If she were to start anew, to live life on her own adventuresome terms, he had to disappear. Forever.
That
was the plan.

“How did you know I was here?” she shouted, shoving the ring back into her pocket.

He reined in the stallion. “Nice greeting.”

Her heart broke through her ribs. “I don’t have to greet you nicely. I never have.”

“I saw you leave the village. I followed you.”

“At a covert distance? I didn’t see you.”

“I wanted to know where you were going.”

“You could have caught up with me and asked.”

“Then you might have altered your course.” He glanced at the trees. “Have you come for a dip in the pond?”

The breath left her. Jogging her head to free it of the madness that was him,
here
, the one thing she had not expected ever again
and did not want
, she pivoted and went to her horse. She yanked his lead free of the shrub and dragged Saint George away from the copse. “I do not wish to know why you are here. I asked you to go away. Please do so.”

“Eleanor—”

“This time, take your horse with you.”

“She is yours.”

“A fine pair of shoes is one thing. A very fine horse is another altogether. And as you can see, I already have a horse.”

“Then sell her. I will not take her back.”

Sell
Iseult? Never.

She looked frantically about, scouting for a rock to mount. Taliesin was following her on his giant horse. The stallion could outrun Saint George, but at least in the saddle she wouldn’t feel quite so powerless.
Vulnerable
.

A tree stump jutted from the ground. She headed for it.

“I will help you mount,” he said.

“I don’t want you to touch me.” She led Saint George beside the stump. “How does it feel to hear that, Mr. Wolfe?”

“Not so good, I admit.”

She hefted her foot into the stirrup and threw her leg over. Her skirts caught and she tugged at them to cover her calf. It was a gown she’d sewn with a wide skirt for riding astride. That it misbehaved today in front of the one man who had touched her legs was her curse.

He came beside her. “I must tell you why I have come.”

“Must you? Well, it will have to wait”—she pressed her knees into her horse’s sides—“until after you have tasted my dust.
Hai!
” Saint George took off.

She didn’t expect Taliesin to ignore the challenge, and he did not. Tristan’s hooves thundered at Saint George’s flank and the field disappeared behind them, then the next field and the next. The wind tearing at her hair and cloak, the powerful creature between her legs, and the man on the massive stallion just behind drove her on.

When everyone else in St. Petroc had barely believed she could walk on her own legs, across these fields Taliesin had taught her how to gallop.

When tears stung her face she knew that they did not come from relief at his return, or frustration or pain in knowing that whatever had brought him here now, he would certainly leave again. Beneath relief and pain was a peculiar, unfamiliar sort of hope. Life must be lived. Casting away the old shell of careful self-control, she would gallop into life as she had done years ago when she recovered from her illness. But this time she wouldn’t hide it from everyone except him. She swiped at her cheeks with her sleeve and rode.

At the final hill before St. Petroc, she pulled up and Taliesin slowed.

“You could have beaten me,” she panted. “Why did you let me win?”

“I didn’t let you win.”

She leaned forward and stroked Saint George’s neck. “Tristan is the stronger runner.”

“But you are the better rider.”

She snapped her head around to him. Wind-tousled, and commanding the mighty stallion with the hands and thighs and muscles she craved, Taliesin was not smiling.

“Eleanor, your father is found.”

RIDING BESIDE HER
along the path to the village, he told her about a manor house and a portrait and a story that a groom had candidly shared with him.

“Edward Bridgeport-Adler.” She tested the name on her tongue. It did not sound familiar. But neither had the name Grace. “A captain in the army?”

“According to the plate on the portrait.”

“But the letter that Mr. Prince found at Drearcliffe was addressed to a colonel.”

“Perhaps your mother did not write that letter.”

Or perhaps Grace had loved another man.

Her father. In Devonshire now. Injured, perhaps. And weak-minded after years in prison. She had never really believed they would find him. Yet during all these years he had been in England.

“How was it that you went there? What took you there?”

“Prince suggested it to me.”

“
Robin?
But why did he say nothing of it to me?”

“You must ask him.” They came to the high street and he halted his horse. “The woman at the house was eager for you to call on her. Do you wish to?”

“Yes, of course.” She could return to Combe and perhaps Luc and Arabella would go with her. But she didn’t want to wait. “Will you take me there? Or have you fulfilled your promise to me already?”

He hesitated only a moment. “I will take you there.”

“Eleanor?” Fanny came from a shop. “Mr. Wolfe! What a fine surprise to see you here again so soon.”

He bowed from the saddle.

She dimpled. “Dear Eleanor, how very adventuresome you are to ride astride. I’ve never had the courage.”

She dismounted. If anyone saw her ankles now, she hoped they spread the news far and wide. She would be Eccentric Miss Caulfield and revel in it.

“Fanny, I am sorry to abandon you, but I must leave here this afternoon, as soon as the carriage can be prepared.”

“Goodness! Have you come to carry her away, Mr. Wolfe?”

Too many of her dreams had looked exactly like that. “I am to pay a call on family, I think. In Devonshire.”

“Family?”

Eleanor’s throat tested the word. Then her lips. “My father.”

“Why, Eleanor!” Fanny exclaimed. “This is most wonderful!”

“I will depart this afternoon.”

“Robin has just gone off too today, although he said he would return within the fortnight. But of course you must already know that.” She offered Eleanor a smile of confidence. “Oh, how I wish I could stay here so that when you return I can hear everything about your visit with your father. But I suspect it’s high time I leave here too. I do so like St. Petroc. Now that Henrietta is happily settled in with her friends in London, I have half a mind not to return to Bath. I may let that adorable little cottage by the draper’s and live here. Robin would be thrilled.” She laughed with genuine happiness. “Now, Eleanor, wouldn’t that be splendid?”

Chapter 23

The Leaving

T
he house was not as large as either Drearcliffe or Kitharan, but it was modern and elegant, and the grounds neatly kept. From the length of the drive and pastures around, the estate seemed extensive.

“I’ll wait in the carriage, miss,” Betsy said stiffly.

“Betsy, I have told you a dozen times today that I must do this.”

“You trust what
that
gentleman’s told you if you like, miss. But I won’t be leaping into it like a foolhardy girl myself.”

Swallowing back her nerves, Eleanor climbed out of the carriage. A groom was leading Tristan away.

Taliesin came to her. He had spoken little to her during the long day of travel, and only as necessary.

“Are you well?”

Three little words. He had said the same three words to her after he hadn’t seen her for days at Drearcliffe, before he had kissed her like he would consume her.

“Of course.”

A servant in a neat suit opened the door.

“Hello. I am Eleanor Caulfield. I would like to see Edward Bridgeport-Adler. My father.”

THE WOMAN WHO
came into the cheerful little parlor in which the servant left them was Eleanor’s height, with blond hair smoothed into a tight chignon and a face so much like her own, but delicately lined with age, that Eleanor gasped.

“Good gracious,” the woman said from the doorway, her hands busy in the air in agitation. Her hazel eyes were overbright. “My dearest niece.” She flew across the room. Taking up Eleanor’s hands, she squeezed them in a fierce grip. “Dear, dear girl.” Her eyes blazed with mingled joy and disbelief. “What is your name, child? Tell me at once.”

“Eleanor.” It came out as a croak. “Eleanor Caulfield.”

“
No
.” Shock slashed across her face. “All this time . . .” Her hands clasped Eleanor’s face and she pressed their cheeks together. “No, you are
not
Caulfield. You are Eleanor Bridgeport-Adler. Finally,” she whispered into her hair. “Finally you are found.”

When she released her, she turned to Taliesin.

“Mr. Wolfe, you did not tell an untruth. I have waited in distress these three days, wishing against hope for what you wrote on that card to be true. But I should have had faith.” With an agitated timidity that was etched into the lines at either side of her mouth, her eyes scanned Eleanor’s face again. “For this is my brother’s daughter that he wrote to me of years ago and of whom he sometimes still speaks. It could not be any other. You are in his image, Eleanor. I never had the fortune to know Grace, nor to see her. But my brother said she was accounted a beauty by all. Love sees beauty where there is none, I think. But it is clear that it was not only his love that made Grace beautiful.” The etchings curved into a smile. “You are prettier than him by far.”

“They were . . .” Now she found it difficult to speak. “They were wed? My father and my mother?”

Her aunt’s eyes popped wide. “But of course. It was not—” Distress colored her face. “You know nothing of it all, I think? For it was secret at first, and then we lost you, and . . .” Again she seemed overcome.

“Was my father in prison?”

“For four years.”

“Is that why he did not come to meet our ship? Is that why he did not search for us?”

“Your ship? Oh, no. No, dear child. If he had known . . . Oh, my dearest niece, he never knew your mother sent you to England. If only he had . . . If only
I
had known then . . . But there is so much to tell. I hardly know where to begin.”

“May I see him?”

“I would have it no other way.” But she hesitated.

“Now?”

She squeezed Eleanor’s fingers until they hurt. “She . . . Our aunt . . . The dowager baroness . . .” She glanced at Taliesin worriedly, then at Eleanor’s face as though searching.

“Miss . . . ?”

“Mary. I am your Aunt Mary.” Again she curled her palm around Eleanor’s face, gentle now.

“Aunt Mary,” she said, “May I see my father? Please?”

“I would have you see him immediately. But the baroness, our aunt . . . You will have to meet her first.”

“I should like to do so.”

She turned to Taliesin and seemed to study him. “Mr. Wolfe, I cannot . . . That is . . .” Her eyes were fraught again, almost afraid. She grasped Eleanor’s hand tightly. “No.
No
. We
will
go. All of us together. There is strength in numbers,” she added with a spark of defiance in her retiring eyes.

She led them into the foyer and to the stairs, pointedly averting her attention from the servants. But her hand shook around Eleanor’s.

Eleanor halted before the full-length painting on the landing.

“Your father,” Mary said. “My brother, Edward. Wasn’t he handsome in his regimentals?”

The butler stood before a double set of doors at the top of the landing.

Mary’s fingers were like a claw around Eleanor’s. “Mr. Stoppal, open the door.”

He looked down his nose. “Her ladyship will not approve.”

“Stoppal, open that door at this moment, or I shall see to it that my brother turns you off without a reference.”

With a narrowed glance at Taliesin, Mr. Stoppal opened the door.

Furnished with austere elegance and bathed in early spring sunshine, the room was inhabited by five people: two young women, two young men, and an elderly woman, all of them dressed as though to attend one of Arabella’s fashionable parties, with lace and intricate coiffures and jewels. The ladies’ gowns were exquisite confections of silk, beads, and embroidery. The gentleman’s coats had large lapels and their shirt collars and stiff cravats brushed their chins. Their conversation ceased as Mary led Eleanor toward them.

“Aunt Cynthia, cousins, here is a wonderful surprise come to us today,” Mary said tremulously. “At long last, I have found Edward’s daughter.”

In her sisters’ homes, Eleanor had been introduced to duchesses and countesses, barons and earls. She had never been perused with quite such blank shock.

She curtsied. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“You have not made my acquaintance until I have said so,” the baroness said. “Stand up so that I can see your face.” She lifted a monocle on a satin ribbon. Lips like raisins pursed. Powdered skin wrinkled around them in tight folds. “At least she looks like him,” she finally said.

“She is not brown or frizzle-haired at all, Mama, but quite pretty,” one of the younger women said, lifting her nose as if to smell Eleanor across the room.

“She is passable,” the baroness said.

“Eleanor,” Mary said hurriedly. “This is your great-aunt, Lady Cynthia Boswell. And these are our cousins, Harold, Seraphica, and Miriam, and Seraphica’s husband, Mr. Custer. Cousins, won’t you welcome Eleanor to our family at long last?”

The gentlemen bowed stiffly. Harold’s eyes narrowed. The younger ladies stood to curtsy. Eleanor wished herself in the carriage with Betsy, or back at the vicarage, or anywhere else than in this place with these people. But she hadn’t come for them.

“I would like to meet my father,” she said.

“What you would like, girl, has nothing to say to anything,” Lady Boswell said.

Girl?

“You might be my nephew’s issue. Your appearance is so near to Edward’s and Mary’s that none would doubt it. But the blood of that mulatto whore in your veins does not make you an equal here. You will speak when spoken to.”

“Good gracious, Mama,” Seraphica said. “Look at what she has brought with her.” Wide-eyed, she gawked at Taliesin.

“Has he come to read spurious fortunes to your maids, Mother?” Harold chuckled.

“After the peddlers come to the village each year,” Lady Boswell grumbled, “those silly girls are forever complaining that their futures look brighter than their present lot. Can you imagine the insolence? How on earth did Stoppal allow him inside? But those persons are despicably ingratiating. They will say anything for a shilling. Be off with you, now, boy. Stoppal! Remove this person from the house.”

A sick chill lapped at Eleanor. “You are mistaken.”

“Mr. Wolfe is with our Eleanor, Aunt Cynthia,” Mary said.

Lady Boswell’s penciled brows ticked up. “How original of you to keep a Gypsy manservant. I have never seen the like.”

“I’m certain it will now become all the rage, Mama,” Miriam said snidely, sweeping Eleanor’s simple traveling gown with disdain.

“Mr. Wolfe is not my manservant. He is a friend of my family and has assisted me in finding you.”

Lady Boswell’s nostrils flared. “I admit myself unsurprised.”

“The apple, and all that,” Harold said with a smirk. “Hm, Mother?”

An explosion was building inside Eleanor’s chest. And yet Taliesin stood as calmly as though he hadn’t a care in the world. But perhaps he was accustomed to this.

She
was not
.

“I will make certain to tell the Duke of Lycombe that you said that, Cousin Harold,” she said between gritted teeth. “Since his son and heir is my nephew—that is, Edward’s grandson—he will be interested to learn that you consider my mother’s mixed blood contemptible. I’m certain my other brother-in-law, the son of the Marquess of Airedale, will be equally intrigued. For while the duchess and I are quite fair, our sister, Edward’s third daughter, is quite as brown as a berry.” An exaggeration, to be sure. But Ravenna wouldn’t mind it.

The faces of the five people before her had gone white as the vellum medieval monks used to make books.

Mary grasped Eleanor’s hand, a grin twitching the corners of her mouth. “It will be delightful to meet my other nieces and their families. What a wonderful day it is. Edward’s daughters are found, and they are grand ladies! Aunt Cynthia, you must be in alt.” She stepped forward. “Now, Eleanor mustn’t be made to wait to meet Edward another moment. Please, Aunt  . . .” She drew a deep breath, as though filling her meager frame with courage. “Give me the key.”

WITH A LARGE
bronze key clutched in her spider fingers, Mary led Eleanor up another stairwell to a door in a narrow corridor. Taliesin had left the house. But that was for the best. He needn’t remain to be further insulted by her horrible relatives.

“When they released Edward from prison,” Mary said, “Aunt Cynthia was mistress of this house for three years already. She did not allow any of us to speak of him, and she allowed me to see him only once a week.” Her voice crumbled. “He was . . . unwell, Eleanor. For many years. He seemed not to know us or anything about his house. In the first year, I inquired into the conditions at the prison in which he had been held, but no one would tell me anything. I think it must have been horrid, and that he was isolated from others. It disordered his mind.”

“Why was he imprisoned? What was his offense?”

“Desertion and treason. He had abandoned his regiment and joined rebels fighting for abolition in the mountains of French San Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo, one island divided into two colonies. He was to be executed in the West Indies. Aunt Cynthia’s husband, the baron, made a special request of the crown that he be transported to England and imprisoned here indefinitely instead. His sentence was reduced and he was allowed to keep his property, but it was all done in secret. It was the last thing Lord Boswell did before he died. It saved Edward’s life, and yet no one was to know of it, not even his wife.”

Desertion and treason
.

“You said he was in prison for four years. Has he been here, in this place”—she looked at the door—“since then?”

She nodded gravely. “My aunt has kept the key.” The furrows in her brow deepened. “I am sorry for what they said about your mother.”

“You seem unlike them. Why do you live here?”

“Because of Edward. I could not leave him alone to their horrible . . .” Her voice trailed away. Then her eyes brightened and her gaze darted about the corridor. “Eleanor, he is
better
,” she whispered. “These past ten months he has come out of the prison in his mind that trapped him. He speaks lucidly most of the time now, and while he seems to recall nothing of his life before he purchased his commission, he has begun to remember his years in the West Indies with your mother and you and your sister Arabella. And I believe I know why. It began with a visit late last winter by a young man. Mr. Robin Prince.”

Eleanor’s eyes flew wide. “Robin Prince?”
Robin
had been here.

“I had never seen him before and Edward has little memory of the visit itself. But it seemed to lift the cloud from his mind.” She reached for the door. “When I sat with him yesterday afternoon he was well. I cannot imagine what seeing you will do to his temper, but I cannot keep you from him, nor him from you now, as my aunt would have it.”

“She disapproved of his marriage so much?”

“She wants this house. After word came from the West Indies that Grace perished and my brother’s daughters had disappeared, Aunt Cynthia imagined this house and estate were hers. She was the baron’s second wife. When he died he left her son Harold nothing. They live here only because Edward has not told them to leave. Miriam has not wed, and Mr. Custer has no fortune or profession, so Seraphica lives here as well. Aunt Cynthia is terrified of being thrown out.”