When the Splendor Falls (17 page)

She hadn’t quite reached the tall grasses when her step faltered and she felt as if she were being watched. Licking her dry lips, Leigh quickened her step, but Damascena, grazing beneath the trees, suddenly seemed so far away. If she crossed the meadow, it would be quicker, but she would reveal herself to anyone watching.

Leigh shook her head in disgust. She was being fanciful. There was no one here. The shrill cry of a bird sounded close by, startling her, but nothing more. The stranger had left, apparently not too distraught about having lost his clothes and the leather pouch—despite Jolie’s fears to the contrary. Or, perhaps he was searching for the thief elsewhere, but at least she had accomplished what she had set out to do and had returned the stranger’s clothing. Her conscience was clear and she hoped she never saw the stranger again—or his troublesome buckskins.

Leigh was congratulating herself as she hurried across the meadow, when she sensed the shadow before she actually saw it swooping toward her out of the sun. Her eyes momentarily blinded, she raised her hand to shield them so she could see, and that was when she saw the stranger standing before her, blocking her path.

Instinct again prompted her to flight, but wrongly so this time, for there was no chance of escape, and before she had taken more than a step or two she felt the stranger’s hands clamp down hard on her shoulders.

“So,
you
are the thief who stole my clothes,” Neil Braedon murmured softly, more pleased than he could possibly have believed by the discovery of the thief’s identity.

Like the hawk overhead, be quiet and watchful, waiting for the moment to strike
, the Comanche warrior Hungry-As-The-Stalking-Wolf had told him day after day when they had hunted the desolate canyons and the high slopes of sparsely wooded timberland. And now his patience had been rewarded. He had camped by the pool last night, contenting himself with a cold meal of dried beef, waiting for either the return of the thief—looking for more valuables—or for dawn when he would search the nearby farms, and if unsuccessful in his attempt to regain his possessions, then he would seek assistance from his uncle and cousins at Royal Bay in tracking down the thief. But his satisfaction when hearing the approaching hoofbeats had turned to surprise when the identity of the thief had been revealed to him, and then the puzzlement had become pleasure as he’d watched the fair creature of the day before carefully replacing his buckskins, and the pouch, back by the pool.

“Let me go! It was a mistake. Please believe me,” Leigh entreated, less pleased than she could ever have believed now that she knew the stranger had not left. Meeting him in the flesh was not nearly as enjoyable as in her daydreams, she discovered, trying to free her shoulders from his painful grasp.

“A mistake?” he asked doubtfully, enjoying her ineffective struggles to free herself, for he had waited for this moment of confrontation during a very long night.

“Yes!” Leigh answered emphatically, looking up into his eyes for the first time, then wishing she hadn’t. She suddenly found herself forgetting what she was going to say, for they were as pale as she’d imagined them. “Yes,” she repeated, “I thought you were someone else.”

He laughed, and it was a deep warm laugh. “Someone else? Am I to understand that it is your usual practice to go around stealing a man’s clothes? What happened to the famed Virginian hospitality? Had I not had the good fortune of having other clothing, I could very well have caught my death of cold during the storm.”

“It was very warm last night, hot even, and there was only thunder, no rain,” Leigh corrected him, unwilling to be blamed for something that wasn’t true. “Please, let me go. I am sorry about what happened.”

“I suppose you are only sorry because I happened to be the wrong man?”

“No, no, you continue to misunderstand me, and this is all so unnecessary. I mistook you for someone else. Someone who deserved to have his clothes stolen.”

“Not very hospitable at all,” he said, thoroughly enjoying himself—both the girl and his possessions were within his grasp.

“I thought you were Adam Braedon, but you aren’t,” Leigh explained reasonably, refusing to give in to her panic, and not seeing the flash of recognition, and amusement, that entered his eyes when she mentioned his cousin’s name. “If you knew Adam Braedon then you would understand completely and not hold me responsible.”

“Oh, but I do know the gentleman in question, and I do hold you completely responsible. And I intend to hold you accountable for your actions.”

“I didn’t steal your buckskins, and I did wash them before I returned them, which you should thank me for. And I returned that pouch, which Jolie says is very important to you, and with everything intact, so you should indeed be grateful, and if I hadn’t been so startled when you turned around in the pool and I saw that you weren’t Adam—”

“You saw me bathing?” he asked, momentarily startled, his gaze penetrating as it moved intently over her blushing face.

Leigh felt her cheeks burning scarlet under his appraising glance, and realized that trying to explain was getting her into worse trouble.

“I was so startled,” she repeated, “that I forgot I had your buckskins. It really is your fault, for you are trespassing on Travers land. And besides, I turned away before you left the water,” Leigh lied, her voice muffled as she stared down at his shirt front, realizing for the first time that he was dressed quite fashionably in fawn-colored breeches and riding boots, the oxblood leather having been buffed to a high sheen. His pleated shirt front was neatly pressed and startlingly white against his tanned throat.

“How fortunate for you, and how very fortunate for Adam that you mistook me for him,” he said.

“I beg your pardon, but this has nothing to do with you. I’ve said I am sorry and I demand that you release me this instant,” Leigh told him, her voice cool.

“Oh, but it has everything to do with me, since I am the injured party. I could bring charges against you for theft. Good Lord, what a scandal that would cause in the county,” he mused, the fine lines fanning out around his eyes crinkling when he smiled.

“Oh, no, please. You mustn’t,” Leigh pleaded, thinking of the uproar at Travers Hill should her mother and father hear any breath of scandal about this unfortunate meeting. “I have returned your buckskins. No real harm has been done. What more do you want?”

Neil stared down into her heart-shaped face, the slight smile curving his hard mouth widening. “Blue, a dark, deep blue,” he murmured, staring into her eyes. Like the night sky just before dawn, he thought, noting how thick her gold-tipped brown lashes were and how they kept fluttering down and shielding her eyes from his. He breathed the same lovely fragrance of lavender and roses that had scented her silk stocking, and the sweet perfume of lilac rose on the heat from her body, but as he leaned closer to her, there was another aroma that tantalized him.

He laughed aloud, startling Leigh from her absorption with the dark gold wave of hair that had fallen across his wide brow.

“Lavender and roses, lilac, and maple syrup. A heady combination for a man who has spent over a month on the trail,” he said, his gaze lingering on her slightly parted lips. They were beautiful lips, delicately proportioned, not too wide, but generous as they curved upward at the corners, and with an underlip full and soft.

“So, you and Adam are friends? He has always had good taste, but I believe he has outdone himself this time,” he remarked, his hand sliding from her shoulder to capture the long mane of chestnut hair. It was like silk shot with golden threads as he allowed his hand to become tangled in the long strands, something he had wanted to do since first seeing her.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Leigh demanded in growing concern as she felt the stranger’s hand against the softness of her breast as he gathered her hair in his hand as if he’d every right to do so, claiming the blue ribbon as his prize. Except for the womenfolk of her family, only her father and Guy had ever tugged playfully on her long hair.

“You are Adam Braedon’s lady friend, aren’t you?”

“What?” Leigh demanded, outraged, and her tone damned such a suggestion.

“You are not his lady friend?” he asked.

“Of course not!”

“Good, that eases my conscience somewhat, although we are blood brothers and therefore must share and share alike. What is his, is mine, and I feel very much like claiming that right. And you do owe me something for the inconvenience you caused by stealing my clothing and something that is very precious to me.”

Leigh drew herself up as proudly as she could beneath his hands. “I do not have any money with me now, but I will see that you are paid in full for the inconvenience caused by my actions.”

“That isn’t exactly the kind of payment I had in mind,” the stranger replied quietly. “Even if Adam were your lover, I don’t think he would resent my stealing one innocent kiss,” he said, and before Leigh knew what he was about, his mouth had found hers.

Leigh remained stiff in his arms, her lips closed and unresponsive against his.

When the stranger released her lips, he was frowning. He was standing so close, his head and shoulders bent down to her, that she could see the golden stubble of beard covering the firm angle of his jaw and the leanness of his cheeks. His golden lashes were thick and long—too long, in fact, for a man, Leigh thought almost resentfully.

Leigh turned her head away, but the stranger’s hand cupped her face and turned it back. Helplessly, Leigh stared up into his narrowed eyes. They were intent upon her face, piercing her deeply whenever she dared to meet them. She was mesmerized by the gray-green depths, gold-flecked and as clear and cool as a mountain stream. But the heat of his body next to hers burned her, making her aware of the soft, vulnerable contours of her own body.

“Unwilling to pay your debt?” he challenged.

Leigh was breathless, but more from the heady experience of receiving her first kiss than from anger at the stranger. Her heart pounding, she parted her lips, trying to draw breath, but before she could, his mouth had closed over hers again, the gentle pressure he exerted parting her lips wider as his mouth moved against hers caressingly. Never before had she been kissed by someone other than her family—and then never on the lips with such familiarity. With a sense of disbelief she felt the softness of his tongue licking against her lips and she cursed herself for ever having wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by this man.

She was so slender in his arms, Neil thought. Although she was taller than her companions of yesterday, the top of her head hardly even came as high as his shoulder. He could crush her willowy length so very easily—or would she bend to his will? he wondered idly as he felt the bones of her shoulder, delicate and small beneath his grasp as he held her captive in his embrace. He molded her closer, moving his hand along the curving line of hip and buttock that had tantalized him so the day before. She arched her back away from him, contracting her stomach muscles against the intimacy of his body pressing against her, but he increased the pressure of his arm behind her waist, forcing her into a closer intimacy. Yesterday, she had escaped him—but not today. Today, he was close enough to see the dark blue of her eyes.

“Kiss me,” he whispered against the soft lips quivering beneath his. “Kiss me, and your debt will be paid, and,” he added, staring down at the creaminess of her face and the light sprinkling of freckles across the delicate bridge of her small nose, “nothing more will ever be said, or heard by others, of this afternoon.”

Whether she hoped to end as quickly as possible the encounter with the stranger, or to experience again the feel of a man’s lips touching hers in passion, Leigh found herself reaching up to draw his lips closer, her hands leaving their position of refusal against his chest to curve around his strong neck and touch the curling gold of his hair as she brought his mouth to within inches of her own parted lips.

Neil drew in his breath, surprised by the feeling that raced through his blood as he stared down into her face; her eyes were heavy-lidded and half-closed, their color gleaming like dark sapphires, and her lips were half-parted, waiting for his kiss.

As soft as a butterfly’s wings, he touched her lips with his. Gently he moved his mouth against hers, then lifted it to leave a trail of kisses along her jaw and the delicate contour of her flushed cheekbones, before returning to claim her lips again, but this time with purpose as he parted them and sought a more intimate contact with her.

Lowering his arm from her waist, he tightened it around her hips as he held her against him, feeling his own passion rising against her softness. His hand spread out over her buttocks, making her aware of his ardor as he held her closer against his increasing hardness, and he knew that one innocent kiss would not be enough from her. His other hand found her breast, fondling its softness beneath the faded calico. His kiss deepened when he felt the hardness of her nipple beneath his thumb and knew she was aroused by their intimacy.

Leigh was aroused, but it frightened her, and sensing the moment was developing into far more than an innocent kiss, she reacted to save herself. She heard her brother’s voice saying, “When in a fight you are losing, the hell with being a gentleman, hit your opponent where it will hurt most—in the most sensitive part of his Inexpressibles.” And Guy, even for his slightness of build, had seldom lost a fight.

She laughed uncontrollably at Guy’s choice of words then, but now, as she remembered and acted upon his advice, Neil felt an incredible pain, and with a sense of disbelief felt the punishing impact of a raised knee striking him in the groin. Doubling over, he fell to his knees, releasing the woman he’d held so passionately in his arms only seconds before. He sat down, shielding himself from further abuse. Glancing around, however, he saw that his former captive had not suffered the same fate as he, and was running across the meadow with a flash of pure white petticoat. Despite his pain, a slight smile curved his lips when he heard the shrill whistle, and he was not surprised when the chestnut mare came galloping across the meadow.