Twice Tempted by a Rogue (31 page)

He sincerely doubted that. But they were here all night, and he could tell she wasn’t going to let the matter rest. Fine, then. He’d have out with it, and then he’d drink himself into oblivion. And when he woke in the morning and crawled out of this hole, he would leave this place behind. Forever.

He cleared his throat and prepared a dispassionate tone. “The month after my mother died, my father brought me down into this pit. He told me to stand in the empty center. He melted back into the shadows. And then a fist came out of the darkness. Sent me sprawling to the ground. I was stunned. It took me a minute to realize he’d hit me. I thought it had to have been an accident. He told me to get up, and so I got up. And then he hit me again, harder.”

“‘Get up,’ he’d say. ‘Stand, you miserable wretch.’ And so I would struggle to my feet. Only to be hit again. And again, until I couldn’t stand at all. We played that amusing little father-son game a few times a week, for the remainder of my childhood. Me standing just about there”—he pointed toward the dark center of the room—“and him beating me until I could no longer stand. Took longer every time.”

“For God’s sake, why didn’t you just stay down?”

“I don’t know,” he said. And he truly didn’t. That would have been the clever thing, he supposed—to feign defeat. But he’d been nine years old, and the old man was his only parent left alive. It simply hadn’t crossed his mind to disobey. His father said, “stand”—he stood. He stood and took another blow. It seemed to make the old man oddly happy. What else does a son long to do, but make his father happy?

And after so many years, it was as though that voice had become a part of him. In every brawl, in every battle. Whenever he took a blow or a musket ball and crumpled to the ground, he heard that harsh, brutal command echoing in his head.
Up. Up, you filth. On your feet. Stand and take another
.

So he always got up. No matter how desperately he’d wished to slip over into the next world and leave this one behind, that voice would never let him stay down.

“I don’t know why he did it. And he’s dead now, so I never will. Maybe he’d been beating my mother and needed a substitute. Maybe he took some perverse thrill from it. Sometimes I think … he just wanted to make me strong. Stronger than he felt, in his own life. Indestructible.”

“It’s very hard for me not to touch you right now.”

“Don’t,” he snapped in reflex. “I mean … I’d prefer you didn’t.”

“I understand.” She paused. “You have every right to be angry. I’ve been angry with that bastard for nearly two decades now. When word reached us of his death, I wanted to take the next boat to Ireland just to spit on his grave.”

“I’m not angry.” But even as he said it, his speech grew clipped. “Just what is it you want from this conversation? Are you trying to convince me that my father was a sick bastard? Because I already know that, Merry. Or is this little talk supposed to make me feel better? Should it warm my heart to know that you and your father and every last footman and chambermaid were all perfectly aware that I was being beaten within an inch of my life, and yet stood by and did nothing?”

“No,” she said, inching closer. “No, of course not. That’s exactly why you should be angry. Not just angry at him, but at this whole place. We all failed you, Rhys. You don’t owe this village anything.” Her leg grazed his thigh, and he flinched. “You’re holding so much emotion inside. I can feel it coming off you in waves. Just let it out.”

What he let out was a long, steadying breath. “The man is dead,” he said after a time. “If I get angry, I’ll just end up taking it out elsewhere. Hurting someone or something that doesn’t deserve it. And it won’t change a damned thing.” He cleared his throat. “In the end, I’m alive, despite his every attempt to kill me and my every attempt to die. Things happen the way they’re meant to happen.”

She growled. “I am so bloody sick of hearing you talk like that. You were not delivered to this place and time by the hand of destiny, Rhys. You survived, despite everything, by your own strength and wits and courage. I know it, because I’m a survivor too. And it’s so frustrating, to hear you go on about fate and destiny and ‘meant to be,’ when I’ve been holding that village together with hard work and sacrifice for years. I stayed when others left. I kept working when others had given up. For God’s sake, I married a man older than my own
father
. Don’t tell me it was all for nothing, and that my life would have turned out just the same no matter what. You insult me when you speak that way. You insult yourself. You’ve stayed alive, and not because fate preserved you, but because you’re a strong, courageous, quick-witted, resilient, good-hearted man. And it cuts me deep, every time I hear you deny it.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He rose to stretch and add wood to the fire.

“More brandy?” she asked him, once he was seated again.

He accepted wordlessly.

“I think I’ve come up with the story. For Darryl to tell, about the pool. Do you want to hear it?”

He didn’t, especially. But evidently she took his silence as a yes.

“It’s a bit like the one you told me in Bath. Darryl will have his own way with it, but I think it should go something like this.” She cleared her throat. “Once, back in the ancient times, when the moors were covered with forests and those forests were thick with magic, there was a small village where Buckleigh-in-the-Moor now stands. The village was plagued nightly by a bloodthirsty wolf. As they slept, the wolf would drag away their weak, their elderly, their children, and devour them. The people were helpless to defend themselves. Then one day a champion came. A strong man, and a good man, charged with protecting the villagers from harm. Every night, the champion would wage an epic battle with the wolf, incurring bites and gashes in his struggle to protect the town. In the morning, once the wolf had returned to its den, he would go to a sacred pool to cleanse his wounds and be healed.

“And there was a young girl. A very curious, often lonely girl. She would follow him in secret every morning, watching as he bathed in the pool, washing away the blood and allowing his wounded body to heal. To her, the champion was the most beautiful man she’d ever beheld, and the bravest. She fell in love with him, though he never noticed her. And the more her love grew, the more it pained her each morning to see the marks the wolf had wrought. Each day his wounds were deeper, more damaging, as the wolf grew more savage with hunger.

“One night, she stayed awake in secret and crept out of her cottage to watch the battle between man and beast. The champion fought with great skill and much heart, but this night the wolf’s teeth were keen with desperation. As the girl looked on in horror, the wolf knocked the champion to the ground and stood over his senseless body, preparing to seize him by the throat in his savage, spittle-flecked jaws. The girl drew an arrow and fitted it to her bow. Just as the wolf reared to pounce, she shot a flaming arrow straight through the beast’s heart, killing it instantly.”

She stopped. “Hm. I suppose we’ll need an explanation as to how this girl became such a skilled archer. And why she never killed the wolf on her own before, if so. More brandy?”

“No.”

One last trickle into her own glass emptied the bottle, and she let it roll into the shadows. “At any rate, the girl pulled the wounded champion to the sacred pool, and doused him with cool water until all his wounds were healed. And just as he began to open his eyes, she slipped away to hide, afraid to shame him in his nakedness. The villagers, having found the dead wolf, all came running and rejoicing. ‘All is well,’ they cried. ‘The wolf is vanquished, and the village is saved.’ They cheered and feted the baffled champion, and he bid them farewell. His work there was done. He went on to fight other, even braver battles in defense of other innocents. The girl never saw him again. But she waited there by the pool, quietly hoping he’d one day return, ever faithful to her love.”

Meredith drained her brandy. “She should turn into a rock or a flower or a tree, or something else we can point to now. That’s the way these stories go, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me.”

“Don’t you? I thought I’d made it rather obvious.”

Rhys rubbed his temples. He had a roaring headache from the brandy already, and he was tired of stories and games. “I suppose I’m not as clever as you give me credit for. Stop speaking in riddles, would you?”

“I followed you, Rhys. When I was a girl, I followed you everywhere, whenever I could slip away. And not only to the pool. Whenever you came to the stables, I would hide and watch you. If you took out your horse, I would follow on foot for as long as I could. When I couldn’t keep up, I’d return to the stables and wait until you came home from your ride, just to catch one more glimpse of you as you handed the reins to a groom.” She laughed a little. “God, the hours I spent in that hayloft, peering down. I perpetually had straw caught in my hair.”

“And so …?”

“And so I was there that night. The night of the fire. I was waiting for you to come home. I watched you fight him. You didn’t overturn that lantern, Rhys. I threw it. Threw it at
him
, but I missed the bastard. He’d thrown down the whip and reached for the hayfork, and—” Her voice broke. “I will never forget the look on that man’s face … It was pure evil. He would have killed you.”

Rhys choked back a wave of bile. “You should have let him.”

“How can you say that?”

“Better me than …” Damn it, he should have died that night. Somehow he knew in his soul he was
supposed
to have died that night. And because of her, he’d spent fourteen years stumbling through the world half-alive, looking in vain for an entrance to hell. All for nothing. Nothing.

Irrational rage welled within him. He clenched his hand into a fist. “For God’s sake, Meredith. You are a stable master’s daughter. You threw a burning lamp in a horse barn? You should have known better.”

She buried her face in her hands. “I did know, I do know. But I wasn’t even thinking. I just needed to stop him, and it was the closest object to hand.”

“All those horses … Jesus. They died horrible deaths. Did you hear them screaming? Did you?”

“No.” Her voice grew very small.

“Lucky for you. I still hear them.” Even now. Even now, in this dark, dank hell, he could hear those screams echoing through his skull. He put his hands to his ears, but it didn’t help, because the memories resided between them.

“I ran to raise the alarm,” she said. “And then my father forced me to go home.”

“Your father …”

“My father was maimed. I know it. I know it well. I’m the one who has bandaged and bathed and dressed and tended him all the days since. And it may be horrible of me to say, but I would do it again. That man would have killed you. No matter what the consequences, I can’t be sorry for having stopped him.”

He bent his head to his knees, feeling ill.

“Don’t you want to know why?” She put a hand to his shoulder.

He shrugged off her touch. “No. No, I don’t want to hear any more. My head is killing me. Just leave me be.”

He had an awful, sinking suspicion he knew what she would say next. And he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want that precious gift mixed up with all this anger and pain.

“Because I loved you.”

Damn, there it was.

Her voice shook. “I have loved you for as long as I can remember, ever since I was a girl. I loved you all those years you were away. I read every page of every newspaper I could find, scouring the print for word of you. I dreamed of you at night. I went to bed with other men, wishing they were you. And I will likely love you until the day I die, because if I could have stopped loving you, I would have found a way to do so by now.” She inhaled deeply, then released the breath in a rush. “There. I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Meredith waited in the flickering dark, afraid to say more. Afraid to move, or blink, or breathe. There it was, the truth she’d been hiding inside herself for decades now. Hiding so deeply, she’d even been able to deny it to herself. Not any longer.

The longer he went without reacting, the more anxious she became. Fear gnawed at her insides, working its way from the pit of her belly all the way to her limbs. Eroding her chin and fingers and knees from the inside, so that they trembled.

“I love you, Rhys,” she said again. Because what was one more time, after all? She laid her trembling fingers against his wrist. “Rhys? Please. Say something.”

And after a long, excruciating moment, he spoke exactly one word.

“Fuck.”

She nodded. Not what she’d been hoping for, but somehow unarguably fitting.

“Fuck,” he said again, louder this time. The curse echoed through the dark. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m so sorry. Until yesterday, I had no idea you’d been blaming yourself all this time. I imagined you thought the fire was an accident. Because it was. It was a stupid, tragic accident.”

He raised his head. “How could you keep that from me? Can you have any idea what difference it would have made, if I’d known that all this time?”

“That I threw the lantern? Or that I love you?”

“Both. Can you possibly imagine—” He made a strangled noise in his throat. “For God’s sake, my whole damned wasted life …”

“I’m sorry. So sorry. I wish I could have told you sooner, but—”

“But what, Meredith? You
could
have told me sooner. You could have told me weeks ago. At least the latter bit.”

Her heart squeezed. Scrambling to her knees, she turned to him and wrapped her arms about his shoulders. She simply had to hold him. “I’m telling you now, Rhys. I love you.”

His muscles went rigid. “I said, don’t touch me. Not in this place.”

“All right. I understand.” Reluctantly, she let her arms slide from his shoulders and settled back on the floor. “Don’t you see? You don’t owe this village anything. You don’t owe
me
anything. But you owe it to yourself, after all this time and all this pain, to find your own happiness. If you could find true contentment here, I’d want nothing more than to share it with you. But if not …” Despite her quivering lips, she willed her voice to be strong. “Then you should go.”

He sat in silence. His breath came so quick, she could feel the cellar’s humidity increasing by the second. Brushing the dust from his trousers, he rose to his feet and tossed a plank on the fire before wiping clean another bottle of brandy.

“Don’t you want to talk about this?”

Crash
. The bottleneck broke against a stone. “Talk about what?” he asked tightly, sloshing brandy into his cup.

“You. Us. The past. The future.” Could he forgive her, or couldn’t he?

He didn’t answer, only drank.

She forced herself to be patient. After all she’d told him tonight … about the fire, about her feelings … she’d altered everything he knew about himself, his past. And everything he knew about her. He must be overwhelmed, just struggling to make sense of it all. And to make it all worse, they were trapped in this place where he’d endured so much pain. Perhaps conversation was beyond him at the moment. For God’s sake, she was surprised that standing wasn’t beyond him at the moment.

It certainly didn’t come easy to her. Using a nearby crate for support, she rose to her feet on wobbly legs.

“I know you must be upset,” she said carefully.

“I’m not upset.”

“Of course you’re upset.” How could he keep denying the obvious? “You’re angry as hell. It’s natural, Rhys. It’s all right to show it.”

“Why would I be angry?” He sliced the air with his hand, and brandy splashed from his cup. A few drops landed on Meredith’s arm. Others spattered and sparked in the fire. His emotions, by contrast, remained at a quiet smolder. “The fire wasn’t my fault. You say you love me, always have. The last fourteen years of torment were all just a big mistake. I should be happy, shouldn’t I? Goddamned ecstatic. Stop telling me I’m angry.”

“Very well. You’re not angry.”

A tense silence followed.

“Just what are you expecting?” he finally asked. His voice was flat. “Tell me what reaction you’re waiting to see. Am I supposed to fly into a rage and smash crates against the wall? Lay my head in your lap and weep while you croon sweet words and stroke my hair? Or … or I know. You’re hoping I’ll push up your skirts and pump you like an animal all night long. Because somehow a few hours of rutting will erase decades of living hell.” He shook his head. “You’re good, Merry. But not that good.”

She tried not to let his words hurt her. “No. I’m not expecting any hysterics, nor any … rutting. But I’ve given you a great deal to absorb, and this place would make anyone feel a bit crazed.” She reached out to lay a hand on his arm, striving for a soothing touch. “We’ll make it through this. Come sit with me and wait out the night.”

“I said, don’t
touch
me.” He whipped his arm from her grasp and took a lunging step back. He leveled a finger at her. “I mean it, Merry. Stay away from me right now. I don’t trust myself.”

“All right.” Tears burned in her eyes as she slid back to the pile of furs. “All right. I won’t bother you further.”

She lay down on her side, hugging herself against the cold. He slunk to the opposite side of the fire and crouched there, leaning his back against a barrel and stacking his arms on his knees.

From this vantage, the flames and smoke appeared to dance around his face, distorting his features. His hands were clenched tight into fists. He was so tense, she could feel him vibrating with the force of his repressed fury.

He was fighting, she could sense it. Quietly doing battle over there in the corner. With himself, with his demons, with her. Maybe just with the rage itself … she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that he wouldn’t let her help. He wouldn’t even let her near.

She must have slept eventually, for the next thing she knew was the sound of rock grinding against rock.

She shivered. The fire had gone out, and the furs had fallen away from her sleeping form. Her knees curled up to her chest, and she wrapped her arms about them, trying to warm herself.

After a moment spent blinking at the gooseflesh on her arms, a realization dawned. Or rather,
dawn
itself was her realization. The fire had gone out, but there was light enough to make out her surroundings. It had to be daylight. Weak, dusty daylight, but daylight just the same. The entire cavern was illuminated.

Rhys was nowhere to be seen.

“Rhys? Are you here?”

She struggled to rise from the carpet. Surely no matter how angry Rhys was, he wouldn’t have left her here all alone. Would he?

“Rhys?”

Her call echoed through the cellar, unanswered. Meredith’s heart began to race. Her skirts had tangled about her legs, and she tried to shake them out as she came to a sitting position.

Then, from the stairway, she heard a low, masculine grunt of effort.

Followed by a mighty crash.

“Rhys!”

Dust choked the air, but she clawed her way through it to reach the staircase. As the clouds of grit settled, she saw him silhouetted in the newly cleared entryway, hunched as he prepared to roll back one final stone. Wedging a length of iron beneath the boulder, he pried and heaved with all his strength. Certainly, they could have scrambled over the rock the way it was. The opening was already large enough. But she didn’t interrupt. He was clever enough to have realized the same. For whatever reason, it was important to him to clear the entire way.

With one last straining effort, he managed to rock the boulder onto its narrow end. A final shove with his boot, and the thing rolled clear.

“There,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his brow. His knuckles were skinned and bloodied. “I’m done with this place.”

His words had the edge of finality. She wondered what they meant. Was he done with this horrible cellar? Or with Nethermoor completely?

What about her? Was he done with her?

They descended back to the village, trudging along in silence. He seemed disinclined to converse, to put it mildly, so Meredith gratefully dropped a few steps behind. She ached all over. Her muscles complained about their night spent on cold, rocky ground, her head pounded, and her stomach demanded food. Worst of all was the wrenching pain in her chest.

The pain eased considerably when they entered the tavern of the Three Hounds to find the room filled to bursting with people.

“They’re back!” Darryl called out over the room. “Mrs. Maddox and his lordship, they’ve returned!”

Stumbling his way through the cheering crowd, her father carved a path to her and all but fell into her arms. “Merry,” he rasped, drawing her into a tight embrace and stroking her hair. “I was so concerned. I mean, I knew you were with Rhys and he’d look out for you, but still …”

“I’m well, Father.” She hugged him in return. “I’m so sorry to have worried you. Is everyone else returned?” Craning her neck, she looked over his shoulder into the crowd. So many people—every resident of the village, it seemed—but no sign of the one person she sought.

Until she spied a basket of fresh yeast rolls, and her breath caught in her throat. She pulled out of her father’s embrace.

“I’m here, Mrs. Maddox.” Cora rushed out from the kitchen, clapping flour from her hands. “I’m here. I’m back to work. I’m ever so sorry, ma’am. And I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I swear I’ll never let—”

Meredith cut off the girl’s speech by grabbing her into a tight hug. Cora immediately dissolved into tears. Meredith threw a glance of relief in Rhys’s direction, but he’d moved into the crowd. She couldn’t see him anymore.

She turned her attention back to the sobbing girl in her arms. “Poor dear girl. You had us all so worried.” The layer of dirt and grit she wore mingled with Cora’s dusting of flour. Regardless, Meredith stroked the girl’s hair.

Cora twisted in her arms. “The rolls will burn.”

“Never mind it.” She quietly gestured to Darryl, directing him to rescue the bread. Then she directed Cora to the nearest table and helped her into a chair. “Where were you, dear?”

Cora bit her lip and turned her eyes to the flagstones. The room went very quiet.

“Don’t be frightened,” Meredith urged. “You can tell me.”

“She was with me.” A heavy, masculine hand landed on the girl’s shoulder.

Meredith’s gaze swept from hand to arm, from arm to shoulder, and straight up to the face she should have been expecting all along. Damn it, she ought to have known.

“She was with me,” Gideon Myles repeated. “All night.”

As she glared at him, red waves of anger swam before Meredith’s eyes. She could only manage one word. “Where?”

“Someplace private. Someplace safe.”

“We only went out for a walk,” Cora said, sniffing earnestly. “But the mist came up, and Gi … and Mr. Myles said we ought to wait it out. That it wasn’t safe to go home.” Her grip tightened over Meredith’s hand. “Ma’am, I swear to you. It weren’t my intention. We only went out for a walk, and once the mist came up …”