Recklessly Yours (28 page)

“We should seek shelter,” she said. “And find the horses.”

“Yes.” His features grew taut, as if he struggled to recapture all the emotions that had escaped him in the last few moments. With a stoic expression he gained his feet and helped her to hers. “Quietly now.”

She stifled a groan as a spasm radiated from her hip and shot down her thigh. She staggered slightly, and he reached for her. The stoicism slipped from his face again. “Dear God, Holly, were you hit?”

“No, no . . . I'm all right. When I fell, I struck the ground hard.”

His shoulders sagged as the breath whooshed from his lungs. “I wish I'd sent you home with Geoffrey.”

“Too late for that.” She drew comfort from the birds gradually resuming their chatter after being silenced by the gunshots. Perhaps the danger had passed. Perhaps it merely
had
been a hunter's misfire. She managed a brave smile. “You're stuck with me.”

“The only question now,” he said, his voice dropping to a rumble that raised goose bumps at her nape, “is what I'm going to do with you.”

 

His question had been one of practicality. What would he do with her; how would he continue the journey to Devonshire while ensuring Holly's safety? He had meant to sound pragmatic, not seductive, yet he saw from her shiver and the spots of color that bloomed on her cheeks that he had achieved the latter.

The truth was, with her he felt anything but pragmatic. With her he lost the control he'd honed in all the years of standing strong before his father and trying to hold his family together. With her, the honor he'd always adhered to—had
sworn
to adhere to because it was the one thing he could depend on to differentiate himself from his father—slid through his fingers like so much dust.

Damn it.
They'd been shot at, had narrowly missed being hit. Holly might have
died
. . . and all he could think about was wrapping his body around hers and never letting her go. To protect her? Certainly. But how much more so to satisfy his constant craving for her sensual curves, the spicy challenge of her spirit . . .

By God, she filled him with admiration. Any other woman would have fainted dead away back on the road. But not Holly Sutherland. She'd even had the presence of mind to retrieve that deuced gun in her purse before he'd dragged her off into the protection of the trees. He might have guessed she'd have a weapon. He stooped now to retrieve both pistols, slipping his own into his coat pocket and handing hers back to her.

“Do you know how to use it? Can you shoot straight?”

Her chin came up. “Straight enough, especially at close range. I've practiced.”

“I'll bet you have. Keep it at the ready. As we make our way through the trees, stay close behind me. But, Holly?”

“Yes?”

“Try not to shoot me in the back.”

Her eyes shot daggers at him, and when he turned to lead the way it was with a small smile.

“Are you sure the horses will be this way?”

He nodded. “I saw their tracks on the road when I left you. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, they took off at a gallop in the direction they'd already been facing—west.” At least he hoped to God that was the case.

They made their way just inside the tree line. Holly held her trailing hems over one arm and kept up admirably, though every few steps he heard a whisper of a groan. He glanced back at the determination etched on her face, but he didn't ask questions. He needed to convey her to safety, and as long as she continued to put one foot in front of the other they'd clear the area much quicker than if he carried her. Somehow he couldn't imagine her allowing that, no matter how bad the pain.

“Would the horses have dashed into the trees?” she asked in a whisper after they'd walked for some minutes without coming upon their mounts.

He shook his head. “Not likely. Horses don't reason out the best course of action. They do the obvious, which for them means running in the open. They'll keep running until they forget their fear, and then they'll simply stop.”

“I hope you're right.”

They walked farther, their way hindered by underbrush, fallen branches, and rocky, uneven ground. A noise brought Colin up short, and Holly bumped into his back. He shushed her with a finger to his lips. The whicker he'd heard came again, and relief coursed through him.

“This way.” In his impatience, he thrashed at the tangles blocking his path to the road, clawing at the foliage and ignoring the scratches to his hands. He broke through and stopped short, his heart plummeting to the soles of his feet. “No. Oh, God . . . no.”

Holly stumbled out after him. When she reached him she braced herself with a hand on his shoulder. “What's wrong? Oh, Colin, the colt! Where is he?”

He didn't know . . . God help him . . . he didn't know. Colin staggered across the road to where Cordelier and Maribelle's Fancy stood tearing weeds from the grassy embankment. Cordelier lifted his head at Colin's approach and whickered in greeting. Bleakly, Colin grasped his bridle and leaned his forehead against the horse's neck. “Where is he, boy? Where's the colt? Please . . . don't let him be gone.”

He didn't know how long he stood like that, hoping against hope that the animal would come trotting out of the woods as though nothing were wrong. Finally, Holly's scent drifted beneath his nose; she touched his arm tentatively. For her sake he raised his head and turned. Turned, but found no words. He could form no plan. The colt should have been here. Horses were herd animals, with instincts that told them to follow . . . always follow. There was no reason the colt wouldn't simply have galloped along with the other two . . . no reason . . . except for one.

“He's been taken.”

“By whom?” she asked. “Who could have known about him?”

From within the eddies of panic, Colin noted Holly's pallor, the sheen of perspiration across her forehead that signified the effort she had expended tramping through the woods. Her lips were thinned and her features tight with pain, her breathing shallow and labored.

Even if he had been resolved to search every damned inch of forest and open countryside beyond—as if that would have done any good—the sight of Holly would have changed his mind. She might need a doctor. She might be hurt worse than she'd initially thought. Sometimes people appeared hardly injured at all, while inside they bled. . . .

Opposing obligations threatened to rend him in two, as if the tenants and villagers of Briarview had him by one arm while his feelings for this woman gripped his other. All along he'd been desperate to return the colt to Devonshire, yet that desperation paled beside his need to see her safe.

A strange calm came over him, that of a defeated man with nothing left to lose. With one hand still gripping Cordelier's bridle, he hooked his other arm around Holly's neck and drew her to him. It was a moment of weakness, just as when he'd kissed her in the woods. Her cheek touched his shoulder and he held her there for strength, for courage. He drew a fortifying breath that filled him with her very essence. Then he released her and drew himself up. The colt was gone. Holly might still be in danger. Those were the realities he must deal with now.

“Do you think you can ride?”

She blinked at having been released so abruptly, but recovered quickly enough and showed him her bravest face. “I can ride. But what about the colt? Surely we can't leave without him.”

“It is he who has left without us.” He shook his head, still disbelieving. “It's in God's hands now. It's all in God's hands.”

She searched his face. “You make it sound like the world might end.”

“No. Only a small part of it.” He drew a breath laden with the scents of the forest, of leaves and timber and loam, fresh and rich. He took her face in his hands and sighed. “A small but beloved part of it.”

He boosted her into her saddle and helped her arrange her skirts when her own attempts to do so made her wince. Then he swung up onto Cordelier's back. “There's a village some five or six miles from here, I believe. Can you make it that far?”

“Stop treating me as though I might break,” she said sharply. Her features smoothed. “I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. I'm sore, but I'll ride as far as I must. All the way to Devonshire, if you wish.”

He shook his head. “There's no longer any reason to rush.”

They started down the road, Colin's senses on the alert. When they spoke, it was in subdued tones. Unwilling to take any chances, he rode with his pistol in his hand, resting on his thigh. His gaze darted back and forth, sometimes over his shoulder. He noticed Holly doing the same. The sun dipped beneath the horizon, blackening the silhouettes of the trees against the sky. Colin willed the village to be closer than he knew it to be.

He gestured at Holly with his chin. “Where's your weapon?”

“Where I can get it if I need it.” She held up her drawstring purse, the cords wrapped around her wrist.

“I recognize that gun. The damned thing is more dangerous than you realize. It's only a prototype, not meant to be put to use. There's no telling how it might misfire. It could explode in your hand.”

She flashed him an exasperated look. “Thank you ever so much for the reassurance. Are you always so optimistic?”

He smiled grimly. “It's not every day you have your life snatched out from under you.”

“Your life?” She tilted her head, contemplating him in a manner that made him wish he could retract that last comment. “The colt represents more than a breeder's attempt to rear a champion racehorse,” she said more accurately than she knew. “Or a scientist's endeavor to cultivate a species' best traits.”

“Far, far more,” he said softly. “But don't ask me more—”

“Until we reach Devonshire,” she finished for him, and he nodded.

He raised a hand to point. “I see lights up ahead. We've reached the village.”
Thank God.

“I suppose you'll be spending the night with one of your network of willing farmers while I stay at the coaching inn?”

“We're not staying here tonight.” He smiled at her surprise. “We're going to hire a carriage, tie our mounts on lead ropes behind it, and continue on to a safe place I know.”

Questions creased her brow. It had been no slip of the tongue that he'd spoken of a safe place in the singular. They would not spend this night separately, as they had done on the previous nights. After the danger they'd faced today, he wouldn't risk leaving her alone.

But he knew well enough that spending the long, empty hours together would pose dangers of a different sort, and he didn't know how he'd protect her from those.

A
fter traveling nearly two hours in the carriage that Colin had hired for the remainder of the journey, Holly's joints protested at the slightest movement despite his obvious efforts to provide a smooth ride.

Under the intermittent light of a cloud-choked moon, they turned onto a narrow drive shrouded in tall pines revealed by the carriage lights swinging from the corners of the vehicle. When the trees fell away, the drive curved in front of a sprawling structure whose stone and stucco facade trimmed in slanting timbers suggested a cottage, but whose size suggested something more. Holly made out no formal gardens; few attempts had been made to torture nature into the geometric designs that surrounded most manor houses.

No lights brightened the windows behind their curtains. The front door appeared locked up tight, and not a sound disturbed the night but those of crickets and owls and the wind. Colin stopped the carriage and hopped down, quickly circling to Holly's side to help her down.

“Where are we? What is this place?”

“My father's hunting lodge, on the edge of Devon.”

“Oh, then we must be close to your home.”

“Another two or three hours, depending on the weather,” he said. Then, as though reading her mind, he added, “I thought you could use a rest from traveling. The place is empty but for the couple who keeps the house and grounds. We'll be safe for the night, and can push on to Briarview in the morning.”

Reaching onto the rear seat, he opened his valise and fished out a set of keys. Then he took Holly's hand and brought her up the few steps to the front door.

Inside, the air hung heavy with the pungent aromas of leather and books and tobacco, a thoroughly masculine essence that led Holly to guess that, besides the housekeeper, females were rarely if ever admitted here. Colin led her through a doorway off the foyer. Ghostly sheets draped the furniture. He dragged one off a settee.

“Sit,” he commanded in a tone that brooked no debate. His large hands settled on her shoulders, spreading warmth through her. Her sudden shakiness had nothing to do with her earlier fall. She sank to the cushions as he gently urged her down. Then he bent to grasp her booted ankles. Turning her, he lifted her legs and propped them on the sofa cushion. Then he struck a match he retrieved from the mantel and lit a nearby lamp.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said unnecessarily, and retreated to the foyer. “I'm going below to let the Fulsomes know we're here. I'm sure Mrs. Fulsome can scavenge up something for us to eat.”

“Tell her not to go to any trouble.”

As she inspected her surroundings, she assumed this to be a drawing room, but the lamplight revealed strange, shadowed images looming just beyond its boundaries—exotic, startling shapes one would never have found in any civilized drawing room. The ticking of the mantel clock drew her attention first to a tapering snout, wide antlers, and the empty, glassy-eyed stare of a stag's head mounted above the fireplace. She flinched as other animals took shape, their glass eyes glinting at her in the darkness. A hare, a raccoon, a goose and—oh!—a wolf, posed as if stalking its prey.