The Runaway Heiress (21 page)

When he sensed her
readiness he stretched over her to spread her thighs with the weight of his
body, releasing her wrists and tightening his hold on her hips so that he might
lift her and allow him to enter. It moved him beyond words that she needed no
persuasion, but opened herself willingly. One strong thrust was all it needed
for him to bury himself in that incredible hot, tight, velvet glove.

'Look at me. I want you to
look at me when I take you.'

He all but drowned in her
beautiful eyes. He could not hold back. His thrusts became harder, deeper, his
breathing heavy, sweat glimmering on his face and shoulders. She clung to him
through the onslaught, her nails inflicting crescent wounds into the slick
skin of his shoulders until with a final surge, a tightening of muscle in arms
and thighs, a hoarse groan of satisfaction, he emptied himself into her.

They lay still, the room
silent except for their heightened breathing as it returned to normal. He
pushed himself up on one elbow and thigh to look at her. She returned his gaze
with a steady acceptance and then smiled, the sun striking sapphires from her
eyes. He lifted a hand to stroke her hair but for a moment hesitated as a
blinding thought pierced his brain, sharp and devastating as a lightning
strike-—and just as unnerving. No! He pushed the idea away. It was a normal
reaction, merely of the moment and the circumstances because he had feared
that he had lost her. But he could not quite rid himself of it.

'What are you thinking?'

'I was thinking...' He
shook his head as if to clear his mind and continued smoothly, 'I was thinking
that I have been a very selfish lover. I wanted you too much.'

She shook her head in
denial, letting her fingers drift over his shoulders and then along an old
sabre wound that marked his ribs in a long slash from breast bone to hip.

'You are scarred too. I
did not know.'

'Yes.'

She lifted herself to
press her lips to the raised welt. He drew in a breath at the impossible
tenderness of the gesture and was surprised to feel an immediate tightening in
his belly although he had thought himself sated. But it would please him to use
it to her advantage.

'This is for you,
Frances.'

He leaned across and lowered
his mouth to her in the gentlest, most tender of caresses. Where he had been
dominant and demanding, now he awoke her body with slow caresses, of lips and
tongue. When he parted the soft flesh between her thighs with experienced
fingers, stroking, pushing into the warm, clinging wetness, she sighed and
abandoned herself to his will. He awakened in her such feelings as she had
never experienced, never dreamed of. Her skin was so sensitive, his touch so
glorious, that she hovered on the edge of exquisite agony. Her only awareness
was the intensity of the heat in her belly and thighs that seemed to be
slipping out of her control—and for a moment she knew fear.

'No,' she gasped. 'I
cannot...' She resisted, trying to turn from his impossible demands on her
body, only to whimper in rapture as his teeth closed over a nipple, torturing
it into life.

He raised his head. 'Yes.
Yes, you can. Let me give you the pleasure you gave me.'

He slipped effortlessly inside her, filling her
with a need she did not understand. He set the pace slowly now, thoroughly,
allowing her time to absorb every sensation, withdrawing and then reclaiming
her with long firm strokes. He watched her reaction as the heat built. And when
it burst through her whole body in a shower of gold, imprisoning her in long
shudders that were completely beyond her control, she cried out. And it was his
name she cried. Only then did he complete his own pleasure, control once more
in place, until he lay spent beside her. He was as breathless and dazed as she
was. She turned and hid her face against his shoulder, her hair spread over his
chest.

Aldeborough
was descending the stairs in mid-afternoon when a visit from Selby swept his
intense sense of well-being away. He was waiting for him in the entrance hall.

'I
think you should come down to the stables, Captain.'

'What
is it, Selby? A problem?'

'I
believe so, Captain.' His face was set in lines of concern. 'I need you to take
a look at the mare.'

Beeswing
was placidly eating oats in her stable and whickered softly on Selby's return.
Aldeborough was surprised to see Kington already there.

'What's
wrong? She seems to have recovered well enough.' He ran his hands over her
shoulder.

'What
do you make of this, my lord?'

Aldeborough
bent and ran an expert hand down the mare's off fore to where he knew the would
find a deep graze across the shin. It was quite deep and very even. The
bleeding had stopped and Selby had been mixing a concoction to apply as a
poultice to the swollen flesh.

Aldeborough
looked up sharply at Selby, a faint chill creeping insidiously through his
veins.

'A
bullet?' He had seen enough wounds on men and animals in Spain to recognise it
immediately.

'Aye,
Captain. And look at this. Kington here found this buried in one of the
uprights of the bridge balustrade which had fallen in the water.'

On
the palm of his broad, callused hand was a familiar object. A lead shot from a
pistol. Aldeborough picked it up and rubbed his fingers over it consideringly,
making sense of Frances's recollections.

'So
that was the sharp crack Frances heard. A bullet. Not the wood. The supports
held but the mare was struck, panicked and fell through the balustrade.'

'Most likely, my lord,'
Kington added his corroboration. 'It came from the direction of the spinney, it
looks like. It would have been easy to use it as cover.'

Aldeborough's lips
thinned, his eyes becoming glacial. 'I don't want this to go any further. Don't
talk about it to anyone. Do you understand me?'

'Yes, my lord. There's no
point in worrying her ladyship.' No, there was no point in worrying Frances,
agreed Aldeborough silently as he returned to the house. But this put an
entirely different complexion on the attack by the highwaymen. Just who was
the target?

Chapter Ten

Aldeborough
was careful to allow no reference to the
inci
dent
at the Chinese Bridge to cloud Frances's enjoyment in the following days. As far
as he was aware, only Kington and Selby knew of the discovery of the evidence
and they
could be trusted to
keep silent. Although she could
not
be
ridden, Beeswing continued to make a good recovery
and the
wound knit well. It
would leave hardly a scar. Meanwhile
the
Marquis devoted some of his time to introducing his
wife to
the more far-flung
reaches of the estate and the tenants
who
lived in the village beyond the church. He put her up
on one
of his hunters and rode
the estate with her. And he
found
himself appreciative of her company. She had charm
and a
ready wit as her
confidence increased and she relaxed
in
his
presence. She was also interested in his schemes
and plans
and was willing to
explain her own ideas.

It
was not all estate work. They galloped across the
park
head to head, revelling in the wild glory of speed
and sen
sation. Her eyes
sparkled and she smiled. When she
beat
him
in a race to the stables she laughed aloud with the
joy of it.
It pleased him to
see the shadow of old fears fade
from
her
eyes and the lines of ever-present watchfulness smooth
from
her face. The contentment
suited her, giving her a
youthful
bloom and a beauty of which he had not been
aware
.
It pleased him that he could do that for her and he
would
preserve that contentment with whatever means at his disposal. And it
delighted him to see the colour steal into her cheeks when a new green velvet
riding habit—and such a perfect fit!—arrived mysteriously from town.

At night he lost himself
in the soft curves and enticing secrets of her receptive body, so slim and
apparently delicate, but so firm and smooth to the caress of his hands. She was
his and he felt the power of ownership when her skin warmed to his touch and
her body moved beneath his, and when she sighed in his arms and curled against
him as she fell exhausted into sleep. It was a novel experience to have his
eyes and thoughts drawn to her when she turned her head in a particular way or
lifted a hand in a graceful gesture to tuck in a stray curl. He wanted to let
his fingers stroke down her cheek, her throat, all the elegant length of it,
and press his mouth to where the pulse beat beneath the fair skin. Indeed, he
could not get her out of his mind.

Her bruises might have
faded to mere shadows, but his increasing desire for her staggered him with its
intensity.

For
Frances the days were in the nature of a revelation. She had never experienced
companionship before and here there was friendship and perhaps even affection
freely offered. Her growing love for him she firmly smothered beneath a
friendly exterior. He did not want her love and she was relieved that he did
not look for it. It made it easier for her to dissemble. If it hurt her heart,
then so be it. She would accept what he was prepared to offer. Perhaps it was
her own love that made her receptive to the affection and respect from those
around her for the new Marquis, from Rivers and Webster and the house servants
to Selby, Kington and those involved in the running of the estate. And the
tenants in the village. As an onlooker, perhaps she saw more than Aldeborough
did. There was never any overt criticism of Aldeborough's father or of Richard,
owner of the title for such
a
short time, but Frances got the strong impression that her husband was
regarded as an enlightened man who would remedy the neglect of past years.

Even with her ignorance of
the details of estate management, it was easy for her to see the signs of
neglect and lack of investment. Poor road surfaces, dilapidated cottages, no
evidence of any development of the resources of the estate, basic and outdated
farming techniques. The tenants and local community looked to Aldeborough for a
commitment and he was strongly aware of it. Huckerby was not the only one to
complain about his leaking roof.

So Frances found herself
discussing schemes for quarrying on the eastern boundary of the estate and the
merits of crop rotation or the wool production of different breeds of sheep.
And the possibility of developing some selective horse breeding if the stables
were to be extended and further improved. But he would not talk about Spain,
apart from the odd casual reference. And he would never mention Richard's name.
She shrugged and wisely left both topics alone.

Of her uncle and cousin at Torrington Hall,
there was no word. Frances heaved a sigh of relief. There were enough potential
tensions without further contact from that quarter.

'You asked me to meet you
here, my lord.'

The library was flooded
with bright sunshine, dust motes dancing in the unseasonably warm air and a
faint perfume pervading from the vase of early daffodils. It was now near noon
and the business between Aldeborough and Hedges was almost at an end. They sat
on either side of the magnificent desk, a welter of papers spread over its
surface between them. Frances detected an air of restlessness, of
dissatisfaction even, about her husband, but that hardly surprised her as she
now knew his tolerance of paper work to be low. As she entered he looked up, a
shadow of concern crossing his features, but it was quickly gone—indeed,
perhaps she had imagined it— and he rose to greet her with a smile that made
her pulses leap. The fingers which she placed in his outstretched hand trembled
at his touch. Would she ever learn to control her responses to him? She had no
hope of it.

'My lady. I am delighted
to see you. You are an excellent excuse to abandon all this for half an hour.'
He indicated the official documents and estate maps on the desk. 'Hedges will tell
you that I will accept anything as an excuse, but then he has not had the
pleasure of meeting you before. Let me introduce you.'

Hedges,
Aldeborough's man of business from York, an elderly lawyer with receding hair
and heavily lined features, rose stiffly to his feet and acknowledged Frances
with a bow and a few words of congratulation on her recent marriage. His sombre
face relaxed into a smile as he agreed that a break from boundary disputes was
always welcome and especially when the interruption was so pretty. Frances
laughed at his unexpected gallantry and offered to ring for the refreshment
that Aldeborough, in the throes of legal complications, had clearly forgotten.

'I
asked you to join us because Hedges has some information that is most
pertinent to you. Come and sit here and he will explain all.' Although his
words were light, Frances thought his face was surprisingly stern as he moved
from his seat at the desk to allow Frances to take his place.

'Is
it the inheritance?'

'Yes,
my lady.' Hedges nodded in acknowledgement and began to shuffle a stack of
papers before him.

'So you managed to squeeze the details out of my uncle'
at last.'
    

'It
has taken no little time, but the whole transfer of business is now complete.
Here are the terms of your mother's will.' His tone was grave and he glanced
briefly at Aldeborough before he began,, spreading out the documents before
him. 'I won't trouble you with all the finer points...' he hesitated '...much
of it is in legal terms, which you do not need, but the main gist is very
straightforward. On your twenty first birthday, you will inherit the sum of
£30,000. It is invested in bonds and shares and the interest will come directly
to you, payable half-yearly, if that is acceptable. It is to in your ladyship's
gift entirely to settle as you should wish for the future. It has been the
tradition for it to be settled the female line of the family, to allow the
daughters of the family considerable independence in their own right, as you will
be aware since your mother, Lady Cecilia Mortimer,
settl
ed it on
you, her only daughter.'

For
a moment there was silence in the library. Then, 'So much money?' whispered
Frances, hardly able to comprehend Hedges's clear statement of the facts. 'I
can hardly
believe
it. My
uncle gave me to understand that the sum was
very
little, nothing more than pin money—
I
am sure
they were
his
exact
words. Why would he do that?'

'I
cannot answer for your uncle,' replied Hedges
placidly
,
well used to irrational behaviour from his clients when
large
sums of money were involved. 'Whatever was said, my
lady,
it is a vast sum. You are a wealthy woman in your own
right
and it gives me great pleasure to inform you of it.'

She
looked across at Aldeborough. He had remained
silent
as Hedges told her of the inheritance, leaning with one
arm
along the mantelpiece, looking down into the cold
fireplace.
Now he raised his head. She had been right about the
frown,
the unease. But again it was quickly banished.

'You
have little to say, my lady.' Hedges's smile held
a
hint of amusement. 'I find that even more amazing than
the
amount of pin money which is now yours to spend on
what
ever fripperies you desire.'

'Forgive
me.' She laughed. 'I cannot think at all rationally at the moment. Thank you
for the information, Mr Hedges. I did not mean to seem discourteous.'

He
smiled. 'I quite understand, my lady. It is not an
un
common response.'

Aldeborough,
realising that something was expected
of
him, walked across the room to raise her hand to his
lips. 'I am delighted for you, my dear.'

Then
why did she get the impression that he was not?
That
there was some problem of which she was not aware?
She
rose to her feet, chiding herself for her suspicions.
Aldebor
ough's
preoccupation was far more likely to be tied up
with
his own inheritance, not hers. She banished her anxiety
with
a smile at Hedges and her husband.

'If
you will excuse me, I'll leave you to your dusty
doc
uments. I need a little time to...to think about all
this. I shall take a walk in the garden to collect my thoughts a little!'

'Of course.'

'I am pleased to have met you, Mr Hedges.' She
walked, from the library as if in a dream.

Aldeborough seated himself
once again in his chair, facing Hedges across the desk, a thoughtful expression
returning to ' his face.

'I should express my
thanks that you were willing to keep silent about the specific clause. I do not
know if you consider it unethical, but I believe that it might be in my wife's
best interests in the short term.'

'Have you some concern
about it?'

'Yes, I
have. I would rather not discuss it with my wife until a few matters have been
clarified. I would prefer it to remain between ourselves.'

'It is certainly a most
unusual clause,' Hedges agreed.

'Can I challenge it
through the courts?'

'I doubt you would have
much success. It has now stood for a number of generations.'

'I am afraid I have to
agree with you.' Aldeborough picked up a quill pen and idly twirled it in his
fingers. 'And there is certainly no ambiguity in the clause.'

'True. It is very clear in
its implications. If your wife dies, or if she is childless by the time she
reaches the age of twenty-five, thus leaving no issue to whom her inheritance
can be willed, the money will revert to the care and jurisdiction of her
father. And since Adam Hanwell is deceased, her father's family, the Hanwells.
And thus to Viscount Torrington, your wife's uncle and erstwhile guardian. To
be used as he sees fit.'

'But why not to her
husband? Surely that would be more usual.'

'It is unclear. I believe
it must have stemmed from personal circumstances of a Mortimer bride in the
sixteen century—the Welsh Marches bred them, I believe, a troubled place with
the need for advantageous marriages in border disputes with Welsh raiders. I
presume that marriages were made purely for their financial and military
advantage and if an unfortunate bride mysteriously disappeared or was even
murdered by a reluctant husband, once he had his hands on her dowry, then such
a clause would safeguard her life or at least the chance of issue from her. On
the face of it, it seems very simple: no wife—no children—no money. But
whatever the reason, that is how it stands. It is, indeed, a vast sum of money.
Can I presume that you will inform your wife at a suitable time, my lord?'

'Of course.'

If I may be so bold, my
lord, I do not foresee a problem,' Hedges stated in a matter-of-fact tone. 'Her
ladyship looks to be in excellent health. And I am sure that your own wish will
be to produce an heir to your own estates and title as soon as may be. In that
circumstance, this clause will be completely null and void.'