Night Fire (26 page)

“Like this, Burke?”

“Oh, God.”

He was coming into her slowly, so slowly he swore he would crack apart with the wanting of it. He felt her fingers tightening about him, releasing him so gently, so little of him at a time, that he wanted to yell.

“Burke, that feels wonderful, but—”

“But what? Oh, God.”

“I want you to touch me.”

He didn't hear embarrassment in her voice. He wasn't listening. He was feeling and he knew, would swear, that it was all over for him. Then all of him was seated deep into her. “Sit up straight, Arielle. Let's get you out of this nightgown.”

Arielle pulled off her nightgown, wadding it up and tossing it to the floor. Then he was so deep inside her that he could feel her womb. It made him crazy. He brought his good arm up and stroked over her breasts, then roved down over her belly to find her.

“Now, come with me, love.” He was bucking up against her, but Arielle realized that she was in charge. It didn't really matter, for she felt his marvelous fingers make her begin to spiral out of herself and she arched her back, crying out.

“Arielle.”

He watched her face as she climaxed, felt her muscles tighten about him, and he moaned, he couldn't help himself. It went on and on and it was something he couldn't believe.

Arielle lay sprawled atop her husband, her hair a mass of tangles spread about her head, onto his face, onto his pillow. His hand was gently stroking her back.

He was still deep inside her. She quivered at the feel of him, and heard him groan at her instinctive movement.

She finally managed to raise herself above him. He was looking at her, his beautiful eyes dazed, his mouth slightly open, his breathing still harsh.

“Thank you, Burke.”

“What?”

“I thanked you. That was such pleasure, almost too much. I hope I didn't hurt you.”

“You nearly killed me and I loved it.”

She flushed, then, to his delight, laughed and gently poked him in his stomach. “Well, we won't take any chances.”

Before he could voice a protest, she slipped away from him and lay down beside him.

He grunted. “Pull the covers over us, sweetheart.”

On her way to find the covers, Arielle paused at his belly, lightly stroking him, kneading him. Then her fingers threaded through his hair to the thicker hair at his groin.

“The covers,” he said, and heard a voice that sounded like a thin reed, if a thin reed could speak, of course.

She kissed his mouth, saying, “Certainly. I don't wish to overwork you, my lord, a mere man.”

He lightly slapped her hips.

She giggled. He felt wonderful. He'd succeeded. She hadn't flinched. And, just minutes before, she'd actually caressed him with her mouth and taken him in her hand and brought him inside her body. She hadn't hesitated. She'd come to a climax. He felt like the luckiest man in the world.

“Life,” he announced to the shadowed bedchamber, “life is having Arielle for my wife and loving her until she's silly with it and having her take care of me. Speaking of care, now that you've had your way with me, would you massage my back?”

She laughed.

 

It was Mrs. Pepperall who entered their bedchamber the following morning. Arielle was just waking up, and the sight of the formidable Abbey housekeeper made her instantly and completely alert.

Burke still slept, and Arielle quickly held her finger to her lips.

She quietly eased out of bed, grabbed her nightgown from the floor, and pulled it over her head. She wasn't angry at Mrs. Pepperall's untimely intrusion. She knew that it meant trouble.

Arielle put on her slippers, then, after taking one final look at her sleeping husband, slipped out of the bedchamber, closing the door quietly behind her.

“What has happened?” she asked without preamble.

“Oh, my lady! I—oh, dear, what shall we do?”

“Tell me what has happened.”

“The old woman, your old nurse, Dorcas, she's gone, escaped from the Abbey.”

That news was unexpected, and Arielle was silent for a good while. Finally, she asked, “When did you discover her missing? And how did she manage to get out of that room?”

Mrs. Pepperall, wringing her hands, told Arielle of going to the room herself moments before. Charlie, one of the footmen, was lying unconscious just inside the door, a lump on the back of his head.

“So,” Arielle said slowly, “Dorcas lured him into the room somehow, then struck him. Is Charlie all right?”

“Oh,
him
. Serves him right, I say. Always ogling the females and never minding his own business, and now this. Stupid, careless man.”

“Of course you're right, Mrs. Pepperall. Still, does Charlie need Dr. Brody?”

Mrs. Pepperall, more in command of herself now, snorted. “No. He's all right, my lady.”

“I want you to have one of the footmen fetch Geordie. We must find Dorcas. If Charlie was still unconscious, she can't have been gone long. I will meet Geordie in the drawing room in twenty minutes.”

Arielle dressed in her own bedchamber and was downstairs waiting for Geordie within fifteen minutes.

He came in, Joshua and Montague with him. She quickly told them what had happened. “We must find her. She is very ill. She could harm herself; she could harm others.”

Geordie muttered something under his breath and Arielle said in a loud voice, “She is not to be hurt. Her illness, well, it's not her fault. Now, please hurry.”

She looked up, a worried frown on her forehead, to see Burke standing in the open doorway. He was wearing a dressing gown and slippers. She hurried toward him.

He smiled down at her and held up his hand. “No, today I'm allowed to get out of that cursed bed. However, I should like to have a cup of tea. Would you join me, Arielle?”

It was over eggs and a rasher of bacon that he said, “Now, tell me about Dorcas.”

Arielle related what she knew. “So Geordie and Joshua should find her soon. I pray so.”

She turned at the sound of a cough coming from the doorway. “Mrs. Pepperall, what is it?”

“Agnes found this, my lady.”

Agnes, a singularly dim-witted upstairs maid, was standing in the hallway outside the dining room. Arielle accepted the necklace from Mrs. Pepperall. It was old, and the garnets were smooth and quite lovely. “Where was it? Whose is it?”

“Agnes found it in Dorcas's things. It belonged to Mellie, my lady. I'm sure of it.”

Arielle closed her eyes. “Oh, no.”

“It belonged to Mellie's grandmother. She was so proud of it. Claimed it was her dowry and any man worth his salt would be proud to accept it.”

Arielle felt tears sting her eyes. She heard Burke say, “Thank you, Mrs. Pepperall, for bringing it to us. I know Mellie had one aunt still living. The necklace should go to her.”

“I'll see to it, my lord,” Mrs. Pepperall said.

“I thank you.”

Burke rose and came over to his wife. “I'm sorry, sweetheart.”

Arielle raised her face. “She must have killed Mellie, Burke. She must have believed all that malicious gossip about her being a slut. I remember now that she was quite certain about it. I was surprised at her attitude—indeed, I was angry at her for being so close-minded. Oh, God.”

“Shush,” Burke said. “We'll find her, then—”

“Then what? She's ill. No one can help her—you heard what Dr. Brody said. Just a crazy old woman wandering about by herself.”

“We'll find her, Arielle,” he said again.

She pressed her face against his side.

“Come, love, here's Alec and Nesta.”

“What the devil,” Alec said, coming into the dining room. “Montague is outside wringing his arthritic hands and Mrs. Pepperall is looking positively pale.”

“The two of you take a seat and we'll tell you.”

“Should you be out of bed, Burke?” Nesta asked.

He grinned, that stone-melting grin that could gain him anything he wished, Arielle was certain of that. “Nesta, my wife pulled me out of bed by my ear. Lord knows, I'm still very weak. She called me a lazy, shiftless clod and—”

“You're awful. Now stop it and tell them what's happened.”

He did, and all grins disappeared.

A
lec and Nesta left Ravensworth Abbey on Friday morning. It promised to be a clear day, not too warm; a perfect day, Alec assured his wife, for travel.

“So you say,” Nesta said, looking inside the carriage with a jaundiced eye. “You will ride in the fresh air and I will be stuck inside this stuffy thing.”

“Yes,” said Alec in his deep voice as he lightly touched his hand to his wife's swelled belly, “but you will have my son with you.”

“Some company he will be, this so-called son of yours. I think, rather, that we've a little daughter. I will speak to her of fashion and how to handle arrogant fathers.”

Burke and Arielle stood on the lower steps of the Abbey and waved until the carriage had passed from sight around a bend in the drive.

“Alec seems content, don't you think?” Arielle said.

“Content? With what?”

“Oh, with Nesta, with her pregnancy, I don't know—with life as he has it on his dish.”

Burke put his arm around her waist and squeezed her against him. “I will tell you the truth, at least from my perspective. Alec is restless. He must be experiencing new things, visiting different places. He must be
doing
. He isn't one to sit in his library and contemplate the vagaries of the philosophers.”

“Like my father?”

“Yes. Alec was on the go even here, examining every aspect of our operation. I must admit he gave George good advice whilst I was recovering. I have no doubt that he will throw all his energies into Carrick Grange in Northumberland and have it running like clockwork in no time at all. Unfortunately, then he'll need something new to occupy his mind and his hands.”

“There will be his child.”

“There will also be Nesta, a nanny, a nurse, a governess or a tutor.”

“Do you think he loves Nesta? Like you, she agrees that he values change, and sex. She told me that was how she held him.”

Burke threw back his head and laughed deeply. “She was teasing you, Arielle. Alec is an honorable man. He is also a gentleman. He would never be unfaithful to his wife.”

“No,” Arielle said, staring after the vanished carriage, “but he could stop loving her.”

“Did you see any evidence of that? Any at all?”

Arielle shook her head. “You're right, of course. It's just that I am worried about her, Burke.”

“I know that Alec will do his best to see that everything goes well. He said he would send a messenger to us as soon as the child is born. Why so sad, little one? You'll see Nesta and Alec again soon. And you'll be an aunt when you do.”

“Yes, I shall, shan't I?” she said, brightening a bit. She relapsed into silence for a moment, then said, “Actually, I was thinking about Dorcas, wondering where she was. Do you think she's still alive, Burke?”

“If she weren't, we would have found her body by now. Yes, she's alive. We'll continue the search until we find her.”

Arielle wasn't to be troubled by thoughts of any sort later that morning. She lay on her back, her legs sprawled wide, Burke over her, his fingers caressing her, his eyes on her expressive face.

“Arielle.”

She stifled a moan of pleasure and opened her eyes.

“This, my love, is something I insist that you will like. In fact, you will very shortly be so beyond yourself that—” He simply stopped, clasped her hips in his large hands, and lifted her to his mouth.

His tongue, raspy and warm, brought all feeling to a single point. It was sharp and sweet and very close to pain. And she knew she'd die if he stopped. But he didn't slow or change his rhythm. And then she cried out, quite unable to help herself, and her fingers dug into his shoulders. He reveled in every cry, in every convulsion of her body, and when at last she quieted, he came into her deeply, fully, and she cried out yet again, and this time he took her cry into his mouth.

“Oh, heavens,” Arielle said.

“Yes, I agree.” He clasped her more tightly to him, only to wince at the pulling in his shoulder. “Damn, let me rearrange you just a bit. There, that's better now.”

She kissed his shoulder and snuggled against him. She said, her voice vague, “I don't know, Burke. Sometimes I think I'm living in a dream. I'm strong and sure of myself, arrogant perhaps, and I'm filled with more than my share of confidence. And then—”

He felt her shake her head against his shoulder. He simply waited, his hand lightly stroking her hair. “And then I'm afraid—deep inside—and I know that the fear is what's truly real and I am nothing but a sham, a coward who's weak and inept.”

“Next I hope you say you think of me.”

“You, my lord? Very well, and then I think of you.”

“And just what do you think when you think of me?”

“You're more difficult,” she said thoughtfully. “I don't know if you're part of the dream. You probably are. A man in the real scheme of things would never allow me—a woman and his wife—so much freedom, encourage such independence of thought and action. No, you, my lord, are part of my dream. You have given me a perfect dream. I thank you for that.”

His voice became rougher. “And when my seed grows in your womb? Will you say that our child is also part of this dream?”

She came up over him and he felt her breasts press against his chest. “I don't know,” she said, giving him light kisses on his mouth. “A child that's both of us. That sounds very real, doesn't it?”

“Particularly when the baby wakes up and starts yelling for his food. Stop moving against me like that, Arielle. I'm very near the shattering point and—”

“All right.”

“What?”

“Shatter, my lord. I wouldn't want to deny you such an experience, or myself, for that matter.”

He came into her as they lay facing each other, and the deeper inside her he pushed, the closer they came together, until her breath, warm and sweet, was his, and his flesh, heated and taut, was hers.

When she moaned into his mouth, her arms so tight around his back that he knew his shoulder would ache like the very devil afterward, he poured himself into her, his teeth clenched, his body glistening with sweat. And he heard what she told him, told him so softly that for a moment he'd doubted his ears. “I love you, Burke.”

 

It was all because of that god-awful goose, Geordie thought, wiping his palms on his trousers even as he cursed floridly. Miss Arielle had ordered a dozen of the swarmy creatures, six geese and six ganders, not wanting to be unfair to the females by forming any kind of a harem, she'd announced to him; and now, after only one day of residence at Ravensworth Abbey, a gander with a high opinion of himself had herded two geese ahead of him—all of them as quiet as could be—and escaped the wired-off area.

Geordie heard a loud squawk, turned, and cursed even more fluently at one of the other ganders, who looked ready to jump the fence in a more dramatic escape than his brother's or his cousin's or whatever.

“Get back, ye bloody varmint!” Geordie yelled, waving his hands. “Hellfire, shut yer stupid trap.”

Arielle burst into merry laughter. Geordie turned, his frown severe enough to curdle the milk, but Arielle just laughed harder.

“It 'tain't amusing,” said Geordie, his arms crossed over his chest.

“I know,” Arielle said, trying to catch her breath. “At least you're here safe and sound, Geordie. His lordship is out with a search party beating the brush for Hannibal and his ladies.”

“Hannibal?”

“Well, a long time ago it was a case of elephants. Now, in modern times, it's a case of fowl. You don't like the name?”

“Seems to me, Miss Arielle, that ye'll never be able to give the word to wring the necks of any of them for yer dinner, not if ye give 'em all names.”

“That's what the earl claims. I fear you are both right. Now, it's my turn to go do some searching. Do fetch Mindle for me, Geordie. I daresay she's become so fat she'll wheeze rather than gallop with me.”

“'Twill be a near thing. Eating her head off, that's all she's been doing since his lordship was hurt.”

Arielle smiled at Geordie's back. She felt wonderful. The afternoon was warm and sunny, the morning shower having left the grass smelling unaccountably greener. She hoped Burke wouldn't overdo. He'd left with three of the men to search for the “damned and blasted” Hannibal, laughing loudly. Still, it had only been two weeks since Dorcas had stabbed him. He seemed fine, his energy, particularly in bed, more than adequate for such a physical man. She gave Geordie a wicked grin and let him toss her onto Mindle's back.

“I shan't be gone long. Tell his lordship, if he returns before I do, that I've joined the hunt. No wringing any necks, now. I begin to think that for Christmas dinner we'll have crimped salmon.”

“I think I should come with you, Miss Arielle. You know what his lordship said.”

She hesitated a moment, then said quite firmly, “I know, but I can't remain a prisoner all my life. Besides, why would either Evan or Etienne have any interest in me anymore? Leave go, Geordie, I'll be all right.”

She clicked Mindle into a gallop and headed toward the east pasture. Geordie smiled after her, heard one of those damnable half-witted fowls raising a ruckus again, and turned, curses already forming on his lips.

Arielle felt the wind tugging at her riding hat and lifted her chin. Strands of hair came loose and whipped across her face. She tried to tuck the hair back behind her ears. Mrs. Pepperall, of all people, had informed her in no uncertain language that she would assist her ladyship until they could decide upon a maid to train as her lady's maid. But Mrs. Pepperall wasn't as gifted as Dorcas in arranging hair. Another pin slipped.

Poor Dorcas. No matter how encouraging Burke sounded, Arielle was convinced that the old woman was dead. If she wasn't dead, then where was she? A crazy old woman wasn't one to simply disappear. Folk remembered barmy people and talked about them. Word would have gotten back to the Abbey.

Arielle pulled Mindle in and called to Hannibal. How, she wondered, grinning to herself, did one really call to a gander or goose?

There was no answering squawk and no sight of a single, long, skinny, white-feathered neck.

She gave Mindle her head and continued east. She didn't realize where she was going, having paid no particular heed, until she saw the chimney stacks of Rendel Hall in the distance. Her fingers curled about the leather reins. She hadn't been back here since she'd come as Burke's wife to Ravensworth Abbey.

A dream or reality?

She thought of her words to Burke the previous day. If she went to Rendel Hall, wouldn't it prove that everything she knew now was real? That
she
was real, and her life with Burke was real?

She straightened her shoulders and galloped toward her former home. It looked neglected, as if it had been empty longer than just two months. No one had scythed the front or side lawns. The shutters over the windows made it look as haunted as any child wanting to be terrified could wish.

I won't be afraid, she said to herself. I won't. I'm not a child. Everything is different now. I am different.
But is that real or a dream? You've only been different at Ravensworth
.

Oddly, she felt her hands grow damp inside the fine York leather gloves. She clamped her teeth together and rode Mindle directly to the front doors.

The Hall was obviously deserted. There was no smoke coming from the chimney stacks. No sign of movement from any of the windows.

Rendel Hall would become a derelict if it weren't purchased soon, she thought as she dismounted. She tied her mare's reins to a sturdy yew bush, then patted her nose. “I shan't be long. It's a question of disproving dreams, that's all.”

She grinned and thought, I am an idiot, yes, but I really don't care. She wanted to face down this miserable house and all its unpleasant memories. Burke would have approved, she knew that. He would have said she was performing a mental cleaning, getting rid of the excess junk that only made for bad memories.

The front doors were securely locked. This was only a temporary setback. She ran her fingers along the edge of the windowsill just outside the library. Sure enough, there was a key. It was rusted and dirty, and she wiped it off on her riding skirt.

The key turned in the front-door lock after some protracted maneuvering, and she stepped into the entrance hall. It was cold, that was the first thing she noticed. Damp and cold. She shivered, backed up a step, then forced herself to stop. She was here, she would stay until she proved to herself that—That what? She wasn't terribly certain what it was she wanted to prove. She only knew that if she forced herself to remember what it was like in this house, to face it squarely, she would have succeeded in exorcising the past.

She rubbed her hands over her arms. There hadn't been any dampness before, or this bonechilling cold. Arielle walked toward the drawing room. The sliding doors were shut and she shoved them open. All the furniture was swathed in ghostly white Holland covers. She looked at the fireplace and saw Paisley standing there grinning at her, that superior grin of his that granted her nothing but what whim allowed. His whim, naturally. She shuddered. She realized that she was standing as rigid as a rock, a captive of fear. She shook her head. There was nothing here to harm her. Nothing at all. Paisley was dead, long dead, his evil with him.

She froze. She heard the sound again. A shuffling sound from overhead. Mice, she thought. Yes, that was it. She didn't want to go up the stairs. She stood at the base, staring up, straining to hear the sound again. The house was starkly silent. She placed her right foot on the bottom stair.

Oh, God, I'm afraid
.

“Stop it, Arielle.” The sound of her own voice brought reason. She was in her old house, quite alone, with nothing more important to do than to see if mice had invaded the upper story. That was all there was to it.