Julie Anne Long (21 page)

Rebecca flung herself into his arms, and he closed his arms around her as tightly as he could.

“I have so little money, Rebecca, but perhaps I can work for my aunt for a short time and she will no doubt lend us money, and we can be married at Gretna Green tomorrow, but we must leave soon to get there, and you
do
want to go to America, don’t you? And perhaps you can be a doctor there . . . ?” He was babbling, from relief, unbridled happiness, panic at the enormity of what he had just done.

“Yes,” she murmured against his chest. “Yes to everything. As long as we are together.”

Connor held her and buried his face in the sweetness of her hair, breathing her in. But no matter how close he held her, images of Marianne Bell, his brother Richard, his father, the youngest Pickering boy, played at the edge of his consciousness like the remnants of a dream.

Chapter Sixteen

T
he hunting box had no windows, but there were a few very fine chinks in its walls, and daylight inevitably found them. Rebecca’s eyes opened to darkness lifting.

Connor was sitting up in bed next to her, his arms wrapped loosely around his knees; he seemed to be gazing in the general direction of the door. Rebecca sleepily pushed herself into a sitting position and placed a soft kiss on his bare shoulder. He smiled faintly, and her heart gave a little kick. She had felt that same kick often over the past several days; she liked to think it was her heart stretching to receive a fresh rush of joy.

But Connor didn’t speak or reach for her; he remained lost in thought, oddly absorbed. She sat up next to him quietly, companionably, gazing in the same direction, as though she could see whatever it was he saw there, too.

It was minutes before he spoke. “Wee Becca, the other day, when I went to the pawnshop . . .”

“When you bought my Herbal?”

He smiled. “Aye. When I bought your Herbal. Well, I met a friend there—”

“You have friends?”

Connor’s mouth twitched. “’Tis a bit early for wit, isn’t it, wee Becca?
Aye
, I’ve a friend, an old friend . . . and, well, I think we should . . . visit him today. If we can find him.”

“If we can find him?” Rebecca was confused. “But what about Gretna Green? Why haven’t you mentioned him until now? Why must we visit him? Does he live near here?”

“After a fashion.”

“After a
fashion
? What does that mean, after a fash—”

Connor covered her mouth decisively with his own, interrupting her question. He nipped at her lips gently until they parted to allow in his tongue.

“
Mmmm . . .” She sighed, and put her hands on either side of his face, surrendering to his sinewy exploration, and doing a little exploration of her own. At last Connor lifted his head, his eyes kiss-drunk and half-mast.

“Did you like that, wee Becca?”

She smiled fuzzily. “Couldn’t abide it. Now, your friend—”

“No? How about . . . this?” He dipped his head; his tongue traced a slow, hot filigree over her nipple, teasing it into a tiny rose pucker. And then he took it into his mouth and sucked gently.

Lightning coursed through her veins, fanning out from where his hot mouth joined her flesh. “
Oh . . . God . . . that’s . . . simply . . . awful . . .” she gasped, half laughing. She felt his lips curve into a smile against her breast.

“Oh?” he purred impishly, “then you’ll just bloody
hate . . . this.”

His head disappeared under the blanket, and his tongue dipped once into her navel before it stopped and touched once lightly, and then with a long stroke, the sensitive nub at the crook of her legs. Rebecca jumped. He did it again.

“
Oh, God . . .”

“Is it just horrible?” he asked in mock sympathy, stifling a laugh. He tossed the blanket back; his hands gently pushed her thighs farther apart. He applied his tongue again.

“
Please . . .”

“Ye taste of heaven, wee Becca,” he murmured huskily.

“
Stop . . . talking . . .”

Connor laughed a low pleased laugh and complied. And when she began moving her hips against the strokes of his tongue, he lifted her legs up about his waist and guided himself into her, met the movements of her hips with his own. In mere seconds, they shattered together.

Tendrils of mist were winding in and out of the forest foliage, and the rising sun sent dusty columns of light slanting through the trees, striping Connor and Rebecca in light as they rode. Rebecca was uncomfortable; her eyes were still gritty and raw from her interrupted sleep, and her legs hung on either side of her horse like sacks of flour. She would much rather have stayed in bed all day.
There should be a law
, she thought.
A minimum of two hours in bed for every hour of lovemaking
. But no; Connor had been adamant. And now it was all she could do to stay in the saddle.

At Connor’s insistence, she rode alongside him, not behind or in front of him, and she was back in the clothes she wore as Ned, which itched her. Connor seemed distracted. He’d said only a few very terse and uninformative things since they’d left the hunting box, and now she could see him scanning the floor of the woods as if hunting desperately for something in particular.

“Connor?”

The look he sent her questioned her temerity in speaking to him when he was so clearly occupied.

Rebecca sighed windily, but refrained from any further questions. But she was growing increasingly nervous. She could see they were riding not north, not toward Scotland as they had planned, not toward Gretna Green where they would be married . . . but back the way they had come.

Connor suddenly pulled his horse to a halt to examine a broken tree branch that seemed to have been purposefully planted in the ground. It was forked, and the longest end of the fork pointed south. He smiled faintly and rubbed his hands on his trousers, as though drying perspiring palms, and the tension visibly left his body. With something approximating cheer, he turned his horse in the direction of the forking branch. Rebecca followed suit.

She thought she’d try again.

“Connor? Where are we going? Where is your friend?”

He gave her a sideways look.

“You will like where we’re going, wee Becca, I assure you.”

“That was not my question.”

“Aye, but that is all the answer I have.”

He gave her a smile, the smile that usually lit her world as surely as the sun lit the day. She wanted to kick him.

They rode for another hour or so, Connor periodically becoming fascinated with neat little piles of stones, or more planted branches; each time he turned his horse accordingly.

“I wish you’d tell me where we are going.”

“’Tis a pity, then, that I am not a wish-granting fairy, wee Becca.”

Well
, she thought.
I suppose sarcasm is better than silence
.

They rode on.

Finally, faintly at first, then growing in strength, she heard sounds that didn’t belong to the woods: voices in a strange language, a laugh, a cough. Horses whickering, the jingling of tack. Something savory was cooking; it made her stomach clench in longing.

A moment later they were in a clearing, surrounded by a collection of dark faces and bright eyes, men, women, and children. The voices in the strange language fell silent.

A movement caught Rebecca’s eye; a tall man with bright pale eyes stood in the center of the clearing, hands planted on his hips; he was swinging his head from Connor, to Rebecca, then back to Connor again, then back to Rebecca.

And grinning broadly.

“That’s quite enough out of you,” Connor said to Raphael.

Raphael turned his palms up in a placating “Did I say anything?” gesture. “You followed the
patrin
, I see,” he said.

Connor nodded. “Mr. Raphael Heron, this is my friend Miss Rebecca Tre—” Connor stopped himself, thinking better of it. “My friend Rebecca,” he concluded. “Rebecca, this is Raphael Heron.”

Rebecca, her eyes wide with wonder, nodded to Raphael from atop her horse. Raphael bowed low to her, still grinning broadly.

Connor slid from the saddle and held Rebecca’s stirrup so she could dismount.

“Gypsies?” she breathed to him, thrilled. Her mother, quite simply, would clap a hand to her heart and keel over if she saw her now.

“I
told
you you would like it,” he whispered smugly, as though it were a special treat he had arranged just for her. “Oh, and they prefer to be known as the Rom.”

“And is he the Gypsy who taught you to tickle a fish?”

“Aye. And he’ll tell you ’tis true, too, if ye’ve doubts.”

Raphael Heron said something rapidly to Connor in the strange language; it sounded to Rebecca like water tumbling over rough stones, melodic and guttural all at once. To her astonishment, Connor rattled off a reply in the same language. Raphael nodded once, thoughtfully.

Rebecca glanced around the clearing at the silent staring faces. One of them, a young woman, was watching Connor with undisguised avidity.

“Leonora, Martha,” Raphael said, and two women turned to him, including the one who was so openly admiring Connor. “Perhaps the young
Gadji
would like to rest in your tent.”

“Go with Leonora, Rebecca,” Connor said gently. “I need to speak to Raphael.”

Rebecca opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wanted something more from him, a touch, some reassurance, some explanation of why they were here. But though his eyes were soft, they were stern with command as well, and his hands remained at his sides.

The woman named Leonora smiled at her and reached out a dark hand. Because she seemed to have no other choice, Rebecca reluctantly took it, and Leonora led her away.

They almost missed the card; it was an innocuous thing amid the numerous other cards and the profusion of bouquets that had been arriving for Lorelei from the moment the Tremaines had descended upon London. Judging from Lady Kirkham’s parlor, the greenhouses of England were being picked clean on Lorelei’s behalf.

However, only one bouquet truly interested Lorelei: a simple spray of bluebells. Every day, ever since her first evening at Almack’s, the little bouquet had arrived at the door shortly after breakfast.“For my bluebell,” the card always said, and that was all.

Her mother thought the anonymous bluebells sweet and very naive when compared to the extravagant hothouse bouquets sent by the likes of Viscount Grayson and the Earl of Pennyworth’s heir. No doubt the bluebells were a sign of regard from someone who had no reason to hope for Lorelei’s attention.

The truth, unbeknownst to anyone but Lorelei, was quite to the contrary.

After Lady Tremaine had sorted, clucking and gloating, through Lorelei’s invitations, she came across the note. It was addressed, much to her surprise, to Sir Henry, not to herself or Lorelei. Wordlessly, she handed it to him.

Sir Henry’s eyebrows shot upward. He preferred to be excluded from social fripperies; a card addressed to him was therefore very likely momentous, and not necessarily pleasantly so.

He opened it, and with mixed feelings recognized the Duchess of Dunbrooke’s stationery. Ironically, the Duchess of Dunbrooke’s generosity had put the Tremaines in a delicate position; they had been reluctant to request frequent updates about the search for Rebecca, lest they seem ungrateful or mistrustful. The duchess was, after all, responsible for Lorelei’s entry into Almack’s, and who knew how useful she might prove in the future? But the days of silence, the hours of not knowing, their inability to do anything at all to find Rebecca, had been excruciating.

Sir Henry read the note, then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, gustily, as though he’d been holding his breath for days.

“Henry? What is it?” Lady Tremaine’s voice was sharp with anxiety.

Silently, Sir Henry gave the note to Lady Tremaine.

She has been seen in Scotland
, it said.

Sir Henry looked at his wife. Her lower lip was trembling.

“About bloody time.” Sir Henry crushed the note in his fist.

“Scotland? But
how
?”

Sir Henry and Lady Tremaine and Cordelia Blackburn, Duchess of Dunbrooke, sat in Lady Kirkham’s parlor, clutching teacups. Lorelei had been dispatched on a series of social calls accompanied by her maid, with instructions to tell her friends that her mother was suffering from the headache and would not be joining them today.

“We are not at all certain at the moment,” Cordelia said. “We do know, however, that she is unharmed. There is speculation that perhaps a neighbor assisted in her leaving.”

“Robbie Denslowe! That young scoundrel—”

“Now, Henry,” Lady Tremaine soothed. “Robbie was not at home when Rebecca disappeared, so he could not possibly have helped her leave. What matters is that Rebecca is safe.”

“Sir Henry, I must emphasize that we do not know how she managed to travel to Scotland, so we must not leap to conclusions,” Cordelia added. “I know no details other than a young woman meeting Rebecca’s description has been seen, and that she seemed well. I have arranged for my assistants to continue their search, and no doubt they will find her soon.”

“Was she alone?” Lady Tremaine’s voice trembled.

“I know not.” Cordelia was apologetic. “I have told you all I know, which is all that my assistants know.”

“I will go and help fetch her at once.” To Sir Henry, a trip to Scotland in order to bring his never-boring youngest daughter home seemed like the perfect escape from this endless dull round of parties and balls.

“You cannot go now!” Lady Tremaine gasped. “The viscount is on the very brink of proposing to Lorelei, I’m certain of it, and I daresay we cannot afford to compromise Lorelei’s future.”

“I fail to see how searching for Rebecca will compromise Lorelei’s future,” Sir Henry replied, with ill-disguised irritation.

“People will wonder where you’ve got to, Henry. A sudden disappearance—”

“Sir Henry, Lady Tremaine. Please forgive my interruption . . .”

Sir Henry and Lady Tremaine turned heated expressions toward Cordelia.

“I do believe,” Cordelia said slowly, “that in this instance, Sir Henry, Lady Tremaine has the right of it. Why take any risk with Lorelei’s future, when it is virtually certain that Rebecca will soon be returned home, safely? She has been seen; my assistants will no doubt be able to see her themselves, soon. And Lord Edelston is willing, even eager, to
marry
her, despite her . . . excursion. He has a decent title, and stands to inherit a good deal of land. My assistants will bring her home while making very certain that nothing . . . untoward takes place. And think of the triumph: you shall have two daughters wedded in the space of a season.” Cordelia concluded her speech with a glowing smile of encouragement.

The Tremaines heard all that was unspoken, or rather spoken in the code that the well bred seemed to be born understanding. “Willing, even eager, to
marry
your daughter”—despite the fact that he was able to very nearly ravish her in the Tremaines’ own back garden at midnight. “He has a decent title, and stands to inherit a good deal of land”—they could count themselves lucky that any titled gentleman would be at all interested in Rebecca, in light of this particular escapade. “My assistants will make very certain that nothing . . . untoward takes place”—nothing, that is, more untoward than what had already occurred, most of which Rebecca had instigated. The duchess was absolutely correct.