One Week as Lovers (5 page)

Irritated with his ridiculous train of thought, Lancaster huffed in anger and pushed completely off the bed. “Madam, you may wish to adjust your skirts. Then if you’ll stop this meaningless resistance, we can decide what is to be done with you.” He’d gotten his voice back under control, but he still felt swelled with rage. A common thief and she’d actually had him believing in ghosts and vengeance and wandering spirits.

She’d stopped wiggling, but her arse was still teetering on the brink of exposure. He glared very pointedly somewhere else—at the back of her head where a tangled mess of braid snaked down her spine. “Mary or Lizzie? Which of you is it? Come now, there’s no point putting this off.” Her spine stiffened, drawing his eyes back down….

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he growled, lunging forward to yank her gown down himself. Before the thick flannel was even covering her knees, she’d twisted beneath his hands. He’d finally see her—

Fist. Holding the small clock from the other bedside table. He got a very close view of it when it landed right between his eyes. He’d ducked his head enough that it didn’t catch his nose, but it still hurt like the devil. She jerked beneath him, trying to yank her body out from under his, but Lancaster was done with her games and simply put his forearm to her neck. Even if the pounding in his head suddenly overcame him, his weight would work to his advantage.

The woman soon gave up pushing at him and instead began clawing at his arm. Sympathetic to the horror of suffocation, he relented quickly and eased his arm up until the sound of air rushing into her lungs filled the room.

“Now then—” he started, but the words dissolved to ash in his mouth when his gaze finally focused enough to see.

Her
. Cynthia.
Her
face, not waxen with death, not hazy and ethereal, but flushed with life.
Her
eyes, not clouded over, but bright and real and blazing with fury.

“Holy bloody hell,” he wheezed.

“You sodding
bastard
,” she answered.

Lancaster shook his head, leaned closer to be sure his vision hadn’t failed him. “
You’re alive
.”

“Not for long if you don’t get your arm off my neck.”

He murmured, “Sorry,” and climbed off her to stand and stare in shock. His limbs felt numb and yet the rest of the world seemed sharper, more real. “You’re alive.
Cynthia
…My God.
You’re alive
.”

“Yes, well…” She rubbed her neck and her gaze moved to him and then around the room and back to him again.

Strangely, her face was growing redder despite that he’d released her. Perhaps he’d injured her throat or—

“You are, um…” Her eyes dipped down his body. “You’re very naked, Lord Lancaster.”

“Am I?” he was saying just as her words hit him. He looked down. Of course. He’d been sleeping. “Yes, I see that you’re right.”

“It seems inappropriate now that I am no longer dead.”

“Of course.” But he couldn’t move, could only stare at her, breathing and talking. And blushing. “Sorry,” he repeated and looked dazedly around for his robe. The dark blue robe lay tossed over a chair, and as soon as he had it in hand, he turned his eyes back to her to be sure she hadn’t disappeared.

It suddenly occurred to him that this might all be a dream. After all, not only was she alive and in his bed, but she was watching him quite immodestly as he shrugged the robe on. Not to mention that he’d just seen a good bit of her naked bottom.

Lancaster rubbed his forehead, then jerked his hand away at the sharp stab of pain. Perhaps he wasn’t asleep, but knocked unconscious and tumbling toward death.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

She blinked as he tied the robe, then finally pulled her gown down to cover her legs. She folded her knees to her chest, tugged the skirt down to hide even her toes, and glared at him. There were the stubborn jaw and wise eyes. Her cheekbones were high, eyes almost slanted at the corners. An interesting, compelling face, just as he’d thought. Relief bubbled up and mixed with his confusion.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked when she said nothing.

“Well, to begin with, you’ve ruined
everything
.”

“You must know I have no idea what that means, Cyn—Miss Merrithorpe.”

She frowned, stubborn mouth turning mutinous. “It’s not so hard to puzzle out, surely. I am pretending to be dead. Your estate provided the perfect hiding place. Until
you
returned for reasons I can’t quite fathom.”

Not a dream. This was definitely the working of a damaged brain. He shook his head, then pressed his palm to the spot above his left eye that shrieked with pain. “You hit me.”

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “Of course I hit you, what else could I do?”

“Politely ask for help?”

She snorted, but when he lowered his hand to look at her, her snort turned to a gasp. “You’re bleeding!”

“I’m not surprised. Are my brains spilling out? It rather feels as if they are.”

She scooted off the bed and drew close. “It’s just a small cut. Already healing. I…Oh, I
am
sorry, but you shouldn’t have tried to stop me! You forced me to hit you!”

He felt a smile tug at his mouth. A real smile. Nothing contrived or meant to charm. Nothing false or prompted. It was just joy. “Cynthia,” he whispered, as she pursed her lips and stared at his forehead.

“Hm?”

“Cynthia.”

She finally met his gaze and her eyes went wide. Her mouth relaxed and her breath hitched a little as she exhaled. “What?”

Lancaster raised a hand and touched one finger, just one, to her cheek. Her skin was warm, soft and tender, and he thought he felt a tiny shiver work through her muscles. “You’re
alive
.”

Though she’d been still for a few long seconds, she finally moved, her shoulders rising and falling as she took one deep breath. “I must ask you to tell no one, of course. But yes…” She nodded. “Yes, I am alive.”

His grin widened. He began to laugh.

And then Cynthia smiled.

Lancaster felt a dull concussion, as if something significant had exploded on the horizon of his life. But perhaps that was only the head wound.

“I won’t turn you in to your father,” Lancaster was insisting, his brown eyes dark with sincerity. His hands opened, as if to show that he held no weapon.

“You’re a man,” Cynthia scoffed. Or meant to scoff. But as the words left her lips, she was reminded of the proof of his manhood she’d glimpsed just a few minutes before. Not as impressive as James had been, but most definitely a man. She cleared her throat. “Worse than that, you’re a gentleman.”

“Pardon?”

“Gentlemen. They’re bound by rules of honor. Would you help me escape my family so that I can make my own way in the world?”

“Make your own way?” he repeated, the earnestness in his eyes sharpening to horror. “Of course not. The world is a dangerous place, Miss Merrithorpe.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And so you see why I cannot trust you.”

“Because I want to keep you safe?”

“Because I mean to escape this place for good, Viscount. And while I could possibly be in danger out amongst strangers, there is no doubt of the danger if I remain.”

His full lips pressed together and his body straightened to a hard line. “Richmond.”

The name shocked her, and she realized that she and Mrs. Pell had only referred to him as “that man” for weeks now. “Yes,” she said, fighting the urge to touch her lip. “A friend of yours, probably, in London.”

“No.” His voice hadn’t risen, but something in that one word fell with the weight of a boulder. When she glanced up in surprise, Cynthia saw something in Nick’s eyes that she’d never seen. Ice.

Impossible.

But then, he was no longer the sweet neighbor boy who held her heart. He was Viscount Lancaster, who’d left this place without a good-bye and not spent a moment thinking of it in the decade since, as far as she could tell. God only knew what kind of life he’d led in London.

Whoring, gambling, boxing, drinking. She’d spent years imagining the kinds of trouble he might find there. Even in the deepest throes of girlish love, she’d understood that he would sow his oats in London. But ten years ago, she hadn’t imagined the city would become his whole world. Hadn’t imagined that he would shape himself to fit so snugly that he could not be budged.

He was changed. The boy she’d known had never flashed eyes so cruel.

“Tell me what happened,” he said while she was still reeling over the difference in him. She blinked, and suddenly that stranger was gone. It was just Nick, watching her with clear worry on his face.

“You heard the story from my stepfather, I assume.”

“I heard he was forcing you to marry Richmond. But I also heard that you jumped to your death from one of my cliffs, so pardon if I doubt parts of the tale.”

Exhaustion rolled over her like a fog, and Cynthia let her weak knees lower her to the bed. Lancaster must have been waiting for her to take a seat, because he immediately reached for a chair and pulled it closer before collapsing into it.

“Blood loss,” he muttered, gesturing toward the small cut on his forehead.

“My word, you are dramatic, Viscount.”

“Why do you keep calling me Viscount?”

Cynthia huffed. “I know we’ve never been formally introduced, but it is your title, is it not?”

“Well, my friends call me Lancaster, but you never called me anything but Nick.”

“You are not Nick anymore.”

It was only the simple truth, so why did she feel guilty when his face fell? “I suppose I am not,” he murmured. She had to fight the urge to call him Nick and take his hand. In appeasement, she answered his original question.

“Yes, I was promised to Lord Richmond.”

“But…why?”

“My stepfather owed him money. A lot of it. When he could not pay, Richmond proposed a different form of payment.”

He closed his eyes. “You.”

“Yes, me. I…did my best to dissuade him. Both of them, actually. It was not the first time my stepfather had tried to marry me off, but none of my normal arguments were effective this time. It became necessary to take drastic measures.”

His eyelids rose. So did his brows. “Why do I feel as if this version of the story has been scrubbed clean of all but the barest of facts?”

She shrugged.

“Mrs. Pell said your father refused you food.”

“What child hasn’t been put to bed without dinner?”

“What child,” he ground out, “has been locked in their room and starved?”

“Melodrama again. My stepfather was never a kind man. I didn’t expect softheartedness from him in the face of ruin.”

“What did you expect?”

She shook her head. Her stepfather had behaved in his normal fashion. He wasn’t precisely cruel. He simply did not understand her. What kind of girl would not want to be a countess?

No, she hadn’t expected anything different from her stepfather. What had surprised her was an entirely different kind of suitor. A kind who took delight in an unwilling bride.

“How did you escape?”

Though her mouth burned, she did not let her fingers drift to her lips. No matter how much she rubbed at that spot, the tingle never left it anyway. “My father let me out to visit with my betrothed. Richmond became distracted and I managed to run.”

Lancaster’s eyes narrowed at her carefully chosen words. He held her gaze for a long moment, but she did not flinch from it. Still, when his eyes dipped lower, she had to fight the urge to turn away. He focused on her mouth, and she didn’t want him looking at the jagged pink scar that marred it even though he couldn’t know the cause.

“Mrs. Pell said she saw you jump from the cliff. How can that be?”

Thoughts of her scar and the man who’d caused it disintegrated in a blast of alarm.
Mrs. Pell
. “Ah…yes. She…I made sure…Someone had to see me jump or they’d think I’d only run off.”

“But…” He crossed his legs and the dressing robe parted, revealing his knee and calf. She tried not to stare at the golden hairs on his skin. “How could you have orchestrated an unplanned flight so perfectly?”

“Pardon?” Half of her brain was taking in his small bit of nudity and half of it was screaming that she needed to
think
.

“Cynthia, does Mrs. Pell know you are here?”

“What?” she gasped. “No! Of course not! How…how could she?”

Lancaster put his foot down and leaned forward to meet her eyes. “This is her home. She lives here.”

“Well, of course she lives here, but she doesn’t go into the attic.”

“The
attic?
”

“Yes, the attic. Did you think Mrs. Pell had just invited me in and set me up in one of the guest rooms?”

“Well…yes.”

“Don’t be a ninny. I’ve been living up in the attic like a mouse. Speaking of which, it’s late and I’m exhausted.” She started to rise, thinking she could run downstairs and warn Mrs. Pell, but Lancaster was on his feet before she could push off the mattress.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His chest was only inches from her face. She could smell his soap, the same faint scent she’d noticed each night when she entered his room.

“I’m going to bed,” she managed to say past the sudden, overwhelming tightness in her chest. She could not think with him looming over her.

“There is no bed in the attic. You’ll stay here.”

“No!” She had to get to Mrs. Pell. The woman would spill the truth and incriminate herself before Lancaster even finished his first question. “I can’t sleep in your bed!”

“Well, I promise not to be in it with you. This house belongs to me, Cynthia, and I’ll not have you living in the attic.”

“Another room then—”

“There are two new maids in residence, plus young Adam. If we are to keep your presence a secret, we must not raise suspicion.”

Cynthia rubbed a hand over her eyes. Was he saying that he’d keep her hidden from her family?

Lancaster touched her cheek, and she jumped as if a spark had drifted from the fireplace and landed on her skin. “We will work out a plan in the morning. But for now, you’ll stay here. I’ll be back in a few moments.”

She jumped to her feet when he turned away. “Where are you going?”

“I must inform Mrs. Pell of the situation.”

“No! Not like this, not in the middle of the night. She’s old. Her heart…”

“If I don’t tell her this instant, she will likely suffer an apoplexy while she is beating me with a broom in the morning.”

“But…I don’t want her to know! She might…tell…” Oh, she couldn’t even finish her ridiculous claim.

Lancaster, just a foot from the door, turned back to her, frowning. He crossed his arms and Cynthia cringed. If he found out the truth he might very well turn Mrs. Pell out. Not for hiding Cynthia, but for lying to his face. No gentleman would support such insubordination.

If Mrs. Pell lost her position, Cynthia would never, ever forgive herself. “I…” she stammered.

Strangely, Lancaster smiled as if he’d just heard an outrageous joke. His brown eyes twinkled as Cyn shook in her stockings. “Really, Cynthia.” He chuckled. “You are nearly as poor a liar as Mrs. Pell. It’s a wonder you two have managed to pull this off without me.”

“Ah…Pardon?”

He laughed harder. “You look just like you did that time I caught you spying on the village boys swimming in the buff!”

She immediately forgot her nervousness and snapped straight. “I never did!” she gasped before remembering that she, in fact, had. Worse than that, she’d followed them to the beach in anticipation of catching just such a show.

“Ha! I see it’s all coming back to you now. There were five or six very naked young men, if I recall.”

The blood beneath her face was coming to a boil. “Nick,” she scolded, forgetting she’d meant never to call him that again.

That one word broke the tension in the room. Lancaster shook his head, his smile gentling.

She took a deep breath. “Please do not be angry with Mrs. Pell. She wanted to tell you and I begged her not to. Don’t put her out.”

“Put her
out?
Are you mad? How could I possibly be angry with her when she may very well have saved your life?”

That pulled her out of her worrying. Her own mother had clucked and dismissed Cynthia’s assertions that she would not survive being married to Richmond. But Lancaster seemed to accept it as a point of fact.

“Come now,” he said. “We will discuss all this in the morning. Into bed with you. Are you hungry, thirsty?”

“No.”

He shooed her toward the bed with his hands.

“But where will you sleep?”

“I’ll sneak into the chamber next door.”

As Cynthia watched in weary shock, Lancaster locked the door to the hallway and gestured toward the door to the adjoining room.

“I’ll be right there. The lock should keep the maids from stumbling upon you.”

“This is all unnecessary,” she protested, but Lancaster was shaking his head.

“Nonsense. Good night.”

“Oh, well then. Good night.” And he was gone. Just like that. An echo of his old place in her life. An all-consuming force one moment and then vanished in the blink of an eye.

She could only stand there, staring at the fading green paint of the door, her cheek still tingling faintly from his brief, meaningless touch.

When the door opened again, she blinked.

“Pardon me, but…” He peeked in. “You will be here in the morning, won’t you, Cyn?”

She thought about it for a moment. Should she run? Really, there was no point in fleeing now that he knew she was alive. “Yes, I’ll be here,” she said carefully.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

The relief in his gaze warmed something deep in her belly. “Good.” The latch clicked shut.

A few minutes passed before she lowered herself to the bed. Somehow it seemed disarmingly intimate to be in his bed, and even more so knowing he might reappear through the door at any moment and find her snuggled in. But the clock ticked the minutes away from somewhere on the floor, and the room was cold. When her tension began to melt away, Cynthia wilted.

Her nights had been nearly sleepless since he’d returned to Cantry Manor, and the soft mattress proved irresistible. There was nothing to be done. Her masquerade was over. She could accomplish nothing tonight. Tomorrow she would argue her case, and shape her plans to Nick’s response.

She curled into the bed. The pillow surrounded her with his scent when she lay her head on it, and Cynthia fell asleep just as she had so many times as a young girl…dreaming of Nicholas Cantry.

How in the world could she
sleep
?

Leaning against the doorway, Lancaster shook his head, never taking his eyes off the slight rise in the covers where Cynthia Merrithorpe slept.

She was alive. Didn’t she realize how amazing that was? Though perhaps she’d had time to get used to the idea.

He laughed at the thought, half hoping she might wake up and keep him company. But Cynthia slept on, clearly exhausted. When she woke, perhaps the dark circles under her eyes would have faded.

He pushed off the wall and turned back to his cold, dark chamber. Though he’d found a moth-eaten blanket in a chest, he didn’t bother lying down. All his attempts at sleep so far had failed, and dawn was less than an hour off.

Each time he’d closed his eyes the fear that Cynthia would disappear again would rise like a starving beast in his mind. Either she would sneak off while he slept, or her presence would reveal itself to be a bittersweet dream when he woke in the morning. He’d found himself rising every ten minutes to ease open the door and stare at her shadowed form. He’d long since given up and left the door propped open as he paced the hours away.

She wasn’t dead, he hadn’t caused her death, and he would not have to kill Richmond to avenge her.

“Then again,” he muttered to the floor. There was no reason to be rash. Richmond still deserved death.

But thoughts of murder could not keep hold of his mind. He was too filled with joy. Somehow everything, even the thought of returning to London for his marriage, seemed easier to bear knowing that Cynthia Merrithorpe hadn’t thrown herself from a cliff and broken her body on the rocks below. His life might be a tattered mess, but he hadn’t contributed to the destruction of this young woman.