The Perfect Princess (32 page)

Everything was as he remembered: there was a small table, several upright chairs, and potted palms beside the long windows. He remembered that Rosamund had removed her wrap and draped it over a chair, but she must have put it on again, unless Prince Michael had wrapped her in it before carrying her into the house. The floor was made of marble, and there wasn’t a drop of blood on it, only the mud that he and Rosamund had tramped in, and perhaps the prince as well.

He found the blood outside on the gravel path—leastways, he thought it was blood, but it was hard to tell. There wasn’t much, and what there was had been diluted by the rain. He went down on one knee, removed his glove, and touched the gravel reverently. In the next instant, a wave of rage surged through him. He fought to master it. Rage would not help him find Rosamund’s assailant. He had to act as though this was just another case. He had to stop his mind wandering to the house, imagining the worst. He had to focus all his powers of
concentration on finding this cold-blooded killer. Then, and only then, would he let the rage take him.

He made a search of the area around the folly and found nothing to help him. The grass was trampled and twigs on the lower branches of trees were snapped in places, but that could be the result of the crush of guests who had come to investigate. He wasn’t done yet, though. He stepped off the path and tried to think himself into the mind of the person who had fired the shot. The first question that came to him was, who was the shot meant for, Prince Michael or Rosamund? The second question was that, having pulled the trigger, how did the would-be killer plan to make his escape? Normally, the groundsmen would have been patrolling the area to keep trespassers out. When they heard the shot, they would have quickly converged on the folly. But every able-bodied groundsman had been ordered to help with the marquee. Had the killer known this? Or had he depended on luck to help him evade capture once he made his presence known?

Maybe. But Richard sensed a clever mind at work here, clever and quick to seize any opportunity that presented itself. The villain couldn’t have counted on finding Prince Michael and Rosamund in the folly. He must have followed them.

Prince Michael would have been easy to follow. He was in dress regimentals, with a white tunic, and he was calling Rosamund’s name. But what was the motive? It didn’t make sense. Rosamund didn’t have any enemies, and Prince Michael was only third or fourth in line to the title. Now if someone had shot at him, Richard Maitland, it would have made perfect sense.

He was done here. As he debated what to do next, he saw lights flickering among the trees. Harper and his groundsmen were approaching. It was miserable work. It was still raining; everything was sopping wet, and the wind was beginning to whip itself into a fury. A gale was
brewing, the kind of gale that uprooted trees and blew down chimney stacks.

The incipient storm found an answering beat in his blood. He would do more than topple chimney stacks when he found the person who had hurt Rosamund.

His thoughts flitted to the house.
Don’t become distracted!
he told himself.
They’ll never let you see her! Think!

There were only two ways in and out of the grounds of Twickenham House—by river and through the gatehouse, where porters were always on duty. He thought for a moment, made his decision, and moved swiftly in the direction of the riverbank.

He was bent with cold and fatigue when he finally gave up the hunt. He’d combed the riverbank, he’d questioned the porters at the gatehouse. Nothing was out of place, nothing to indicate that a trespasser had been among them. The exhaustion he was fighting left no room to speculate on what this might mean, not yet.

The ground floor of the house was in darkness, as it usually was late at night when the shutters were drawn, but there were plenty of lights upstairs. He took shelter from the gale in a stand of pines and stood there, staring at the house, thinking, wondering, angry that he didn’t have the right to be with Rosamund, and it made him still angrier knowing that his anger was misplaced. He was nothing to the Deveres except a fugitive from the law. If he were Rosamund’s father or brothers, he wouldn’t want Richard Maitland near her either.

As his breathing evened and his exhaustion ebbed a little, he let his gaze wander. He noted dully that he wasn’t the only one to give up the search. There were no groundsmen and no flickering lanterns moving among the trees. There were no coaches wending their way home. There was only the persistent drizzle and the wild-ness in the wind aggravating the wildness in himself.

He left the shelter of the trees and in a stumbling gait began to make his way toward the stable block. If the searchers had given up, then Harper would be in his cottage. If there was any news of Rosamund, Harper would know it.

He didn’t have to force himself to go on now. His feet moved of their own volition, up, up the steep incline to the row of groundsmen’s cottages. No light in Harper’s cottage, his brain registered, but there was light in his. He dashed the droplets of rain from his face with the back of his sleeve, found the latch, and stumbled inside.

He expected to see Harper, but it wasn’t Harper who was kneeling in front of the blaze in the grate. She turned and rose at his entrance. A gust of wind from the open doorway sent sparks from the fire hurtling up the chimney. He slammed the door shut.

“Richard!” she cried out. “Where have you been? Harper and I have been worried sick about you.”

His voice was no more than a thick whisper. “Rosamund?”

There wasn’t a mark on her, not that he could see. She’d changed her gown for something warmer, something dark that had lace at the throat and cuffs. Tears glistened on her lashes and streaked her cheeks.

“It wasn’t me,” she said, quickly crossing to him. “Harper told me what you both thought, but you were wrong. It was Prudence who was walking with Prince Michael. We think that someone shot at the prince and hit Prudence by mistake. It’s only a flesh wound. She’s sleeping now . . .” Her voice trailed away. “Richard, I’m fine, truly I am.”

Like a man in a daze, he reached for her. She was warm to his touch, warm and glowing with life. He closed his eyes, wrapped her in his arms, and held her in a crushing embrace. She wrapped her arms around him as well. No words were spoken; no words were needed.

She pulled away first. “You’re soaking, you’re shivering. Here, let me help you with your coat.”

She tugged his rain-soaked coat from his shoulders and draped it over a chair to dry by the fire. When he simply stood there, his eyes following her, she led him to the bed.

“Take off those wet clothes,” she said. She was becoming worried. She’d never seen him like this. “Is there brandy?”

“In the dresser. But I don’t want brandy.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and held out his arms. She came to him at once. She said shakenly, “Oh, my darling, I thought something awful had happened to you. I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’ve been such a fool,” he said, and kissed her.

A damn fool
, he thought as he stretched out with her on the bed. All his life he’d been surrounded by people, in school, at university, as a soldier, but he’d always been alone. Until Rosamund came hurtling into his life like a meteor. He never wanted to be alone again.

He tightened his hold on her. He didn’t expect things to be easy. He didn’t know if he could make her happy. But never again, he promised himself,
never again
would he stand outside a locked door, like a suppliant, not knowing whether she lived or died. There would never be a locked door between them again.

Rosamund knew that he was in the grip of some powerful emotion, but so was she. When she learned that Prudence was shot, she’d been deathly afraid that the assassin might still be out there stalking Richard, so the first chance she got, she’d slipped away to make sure that he was all right. Harper had found her in the cottage, and their anxiety had turned to alarm. In the last hours, all kinds of grotesque scenes had played themselves out in her mind, till she was close to panic. He’d come back to her safe and sound, but she was still shaken from all the strain and tension of that awful night.

She’d learned that time didn’t stretch out into infinity. All those books in her father’s library were wrong. Time could run out at any moment. All they had, all they could count on, was the present, and she wasn’t going to waste one precious second of it.

They clung together for a long, long time. His hands were still trembling when he cupped her cheeks and studied her face. There was a question in his eyes.

“Yes,” she said simply.

Unsmiling, he began to disrobe her.

She didn’t want pretty words or promises. She wasn’t thinking of pleasure. She was long past the need for modesty. What she wanted was this ultimate intimacy, bare skin against bare skin, and heat, and to be so close to him that nothing could separate them, not even a shadow.

His mouth and hands were not gentle, but she understood. The pent-up emotion of that night was too desperate for gentleness. Their coupling was swift and fierce, and in spite of the flash of pain exactly what Rosamund needed.

When he slipped from her body, he pulled her hard against him. “Don’t leave me,” he murmured, and as though to make his point, he anchored her with an arm around her waist. A moment later, he drifted into an exhausted sleep.

He awakened with a start, thinking in that first disoriented moment that the gale had blown off the roof of his cottage. When he hauled himself up, he saw that the cold blast of air had entered the cottage through the open door. Rosamund was at the door. He heard her say something to someone outside, but it was too dark to see who it was. She was wrapped in a cloak, but her toes were bare and so were her arms.

“Was that Harper?” he asked softly as she closed the door.

She turned without haste. “Yes,” she said. “I thought he might be shocked to find me here with you like this.” She pushed her unbound hair back from her face.

His lips curled. “And was he?”

“Not shocked. I think ‘resigned’ is closer to the look that came over his face.”

“Did he give you a message for me?”

“Now, let me see.” She looked at the ceiling as though Harper’s words were written on it. “If I’ve translated it right, he said that if you went off on your own again without letting him know where he could find you, he would do you a serious injury.” She dimpled. “He was very angry, but of course he was relieved, too.”

He smiled. “Is that all he said?”

“No. He offered to escort me to the house, but I told him I wasn’t ready to go home just yet.”

At these words, the small knot of tension across his shoulder blades gradually relaxed. There was no wariness in her eyes, nothing to suggest that his ardor had embarrassed or shocked her. Any other woman . . . but there was no point in comparing her to any other woman. Rosamund was unique.

“I put the kettle on to boil,” she said. “Why don’t we get dressed, then we can talk while we have our tea.”

“I don’t want you to get dressed.”

The intensity of his gaze made her heart begin to thud. “Oh.”

“And we’ll talk afterward. Come to bed, Rosamund.”

When he held out his hand, she went to him without hesitation. That simple act of trust brought an odd tightness to his throat.

All at once there was a crack overhead as the wind tore through the trees. They heard a thud, as if a heavy branch had fallen or a tree had been uprooted. Then the wind’s howl died to a moan.

When Rosamund shivered, Richard pulled her onto the bed and held her in his arms. Something fierce
moved in him, something fierce that was edged with fear. She looked up at him with such trusting eyes. He wanted to protect her from all the ugliness and evil that was to be found in the world, but he had never been more aware of his own mortality, or hers.

He kissed her long and slowly. “What would make you happy?” he asked.

“Being with you. That’s what makes me happy.” She gazed up at him, her mouth trembling. “Take me with you, Richard, when you leave here. I can’t face not knowing where you are, or what’s happening to you. We could start fresh, somewhere else. That’s what would make me happy.”