A Night to Surrender (22 page)

He nodded. “It went well indeed.”

To be truthful, she’d enjoyed the past quarter hour immensely. Standing
next
to Bram as an equal, rather than squaring off against him. Speaking together, instead of over each other’s words. As they’d addressed their friends and neighbors, the air had hummed with a pleasant chord of harmony, and she’d almost felt as if . . .

She dropped a step back, cocked her head, and peered at him.

“What is it?” he asked, looking self-conscious.

“It’s just . . . You look very lordly, all of a sudden. Standing there in front of the keep, addressing all the villagers. It’s as though you were born to the Rycliff title, instead of gifted it a week ago.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” His brows drew together. “My father was a major general, not an earl of any sort. I don’t mean to forget that, ever.”

“Of course not. I didn’t mean it that way. Your father was a great man, and naturally you’ll always be proud to be his son. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be proud of
you
today, does it?”

He had no reply to that. After a prolonged pause, he said, “I’d best go ready myself for drill.”

“Yes. I suppose I should be going, too.”

As he began to walk past her toward the keep, she once again noted the slight hitch in his gait. An impulse seized her. “Wait.”

She could have reached out to catch his arm or his shoulder. But no. She had to go pressing her hand flat against his strong, solid chest. Realizing her mistake, she snatched it back—but the thumping echo of his heartbeat lingered on her palm.

A furtive glance around her indicated that no one had observed the bold gesture. Not this time, at least. But judging by the hot blush scalding her cheeks, Susanna knew she was going to have to work very hard to keep her attraction to Bram below notice.

Which made her next words imprudent as anything.

“There’s one other task we need to address. One not on the list.” She still clutched the paper in her hand and spoke low. “Something that requires the two of us to work together. Alone.”

“Is that so?” Surprise—and desire—flared in his jade-green eyes. “I can’t deny that I’m intrigued. Name the place and time. I’ll be there.”

“The cove,” she murmured, sending up a prayer that she wasn’t making an enormous mistake. “After dark. Tonight.”

Twenty

S
tars blanketed the clear night, and the moon hung large and yellow in the sky. A fortunate thing, or Bram would have had no light by which to pick his way down to the cove. He kept his eyes trained on the path, careful not to misstep. As a result, he reached the pebbled shore without any idea where—or even
if
—he would find Susanna. He didn’t see her anywhere along the beach.

Perhaps she hadn’t been able to slip away. Perhaps she’d changed her mind about meeting him. Perhaps she’d never intended to meet him at all, but only meant to play him a clever trick.

A soft splash drew his attention.

“Over here,” he heard her call.

He approached the water’s edge. “Susanna?”

“I’m here. In the water.”

“In the water?” His eyes adjusted to the darkness. There she was, his alluring mermaid, submerged to her neck in the sea. “What are you wearing under there?”

“Come join me if you want to find out.”

Bram had never shucked his clothes faster. He stripped straight down to his skin. This wasn’t one of Spindle Cove’s warm, sunny afternoons. He would have a long walk back to the castle, and he didn’t want to make it in sopping wet clothes.

“Damn, this water is cold,” he said, testing it with his toes.

“It’s not so bad tonight, truly. You’ll grow accustomed to it.”

He dashed into the sea, knowing it was better to douse himself all at once than to draw out the torture by slow degrees. He met her some distance out from shore, in a place where the water line hit him mid-abdomen. Unable to get a good look in the dark, he gave her shoulder an exploratory grope.

When he caught a handful of rough fabric, he groaned. “Not the wretched bathing costume.”

She laughed, a husky, arousing laugh.

Blast it, he knew he shouldn’t press matters too far. But she was so close, and they were finally alone again. He couldn’t resist doing what he’d been wanting to do all day. In a quick move, he pulled her close, wrapping arms and legs about her slender form. Holding her tight.

In his arms, she went utterly still. He felt her every muscle go rigid as steel.

“Bram. What are you doing?”

“I’m embracing you. It’s cold.”

“You’re . . .” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “
You’re naked
.”

“Sorry, I forgot my bathing costume.” He chuckled. “You’ve seen all there is to see of me already. And there’s no one here but the two of us.”

“
Precisely
.”

“
Then why is it we’re whispering
?”

Peeved, she said aloud, “I don’t know.”

He teased her ear with his breath. “We could warm each other.”

She made a frustrated noise and pushed away. “Be serious, please. We’re here for a reason.”

“Believe me, I know I’m here for a reason. The reason is you.”

“No. The reason is your knee.”

“My knee?”

“Yes. I know it’s been paining you. If you’re going to make it through these next few weeks, you need to care for it properly. And if you’re determined to return to field command after that . . . Well, I’m equally determined to send you back with as much strength and stamina as possible.”

“I
am
strong.” His pride was piqued. “And you should know, I have abundant stamina.”

With a dismissive noise, she moved away. She swam a few strokes to a nearby boulder, reaching for something. The way the mysterious object rattled, he imagined it to be some sort of chain. When she returned carrying it just at the water’s surface, he caught the gleam of metal in the moonlight.

“What is that?” he asked, peering at it. “Some sort of medieval torture device?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what it is.”

“God. I was joking. But you aren’t, are you?”

“No. I borrowed it from my father’s collection. There’s an ankle cuff, and this ball is attached. It’s deuced heavy. Here.” She dumped the ball into his hands.

“You’re right,” he said, his voice suddenly strained. “It is deuced heavy.”

From a cord tied about her neck, she produced a thick key. With a bit of trial and error, she managed to fit the key into a hole in the iron cuff. The two halves opened like a clamshell.

“This fits around your ankle, see?” she said. “Stand on your good leg, lift the bad, and I’ll secure the thing.”

“Now wait just a minute. Let me be certain I understand this. You have me out here in the freezing ocean, naked—”

“I didn’t ask you to be naked.”

“And now you propose to leg-shackle me.”

“Only in the literal sense.”

“Yes. It’s the literal sense that concerns me. Being literally leg-shackled is bad enough, no need of metaphors. So once you have me bound and chained, how am I to know you won’t just leave me here to freeze all night and be picked apart by gulls tomorrow morning?”

She unlooped the key from her own neck and transferred the necklace to him. “There. You may hold the key. Does that make you feel better?”

“Not really. I still don’t understand what your purpose is.”

“You’ll understand soon enough. Just lift your leg.”

He obeyed, tilting his head back to stare up at the night. There was nothing like a sky full of stars to make a man reckon with his own humility. How, precisely, had he arrived at this? He was taking orders from a spinster, willingly submitting himself to her medieval torture devices. And she wasn’t even naked.

“You can never tell a soul about this,” he said. “I mean it, Susanna. I’ll deny it to my grave. My reputation would never recover.”

“
Your
reputation? Do you think I’m eager to spread tales of this scene?” She fixed the cuff around his leg, and it snapped into place. “Now slowly lower your foot, and drop the ball into the water.”

Once again, he did as directed. The ball sank quickly to the pebbled bottom, dragging his foot down with it.

“There. Now you have resistance.”

“I didn’t realize I was short on resistance. I rather thought you’d been giving me ample supply.”

“Physical resistance.” She retreated soundlessly, slicing back through the calm water to put space between them. “Walk toward me, slowly. You’ll see.”

He stepped forward onto his good leg. When he tried to take a step with his injured leg, the ball and shackle dragged behind him. Heavy, but with the water’s help, not impossible to move.

“That’s good,” she said, backing up another pace. “Keep moving. Be certain to lift your leg, not drag it. As if you’re marching.”

He took several lunging paces more, chasing her through the chest-deep water. “Tell me why I’m doing this?” He backed her against a boulder, but she darted to the side, swimming away.

“Come this way now,” she directed, shaking her hair free of salty spray. “And I’ll explain.”

He moved forward again. “Explain.”

“It’s like this, Bram. You’re a large man.”

“I’m so glad you’ve noticed.”

“What I mean is, you’re heavy. You’re absolutely right that you need to use your leg in order to recover your full strength. Once your wound healed, staying abed was of no further benefit. But when you walk—or run, or march—on solid ground, you’re adding your entire body weight to every step. And you’re so big, it’s too much strain. Here in the sea, the buoyancy relieves the pressure on your knee. And the shackle gives you a weight to work against.”

He almost reached her, but again she swam out of his reach. He received only a splash of seawater for his pains.

“If you do this regularly,” she called out to him, surfacing some distance away, “you’ll be able to rebuild your strength without heaping more damage on your knee.”

He had to admit, the theory of it made some sense. “Who taught you all this?”

“No one. Two summers ago, we had a girl here recovering from a nasty fall from a horse. She’d broken her leg and hip. Even months later, she could barely hobble around. Her physician at home had told her she would be an invalid. The poor thing was devastated. Only sixteen, you know. She thought she would never have a season, never marry. Fortunately, her father decided to send her here.”

“For a cure?” Bram lunged in her direction. He was catching the rhythm of this exercise now, and this time she barely escaped him.

“I doubt he had any hope of a cure. He was probably hoping she would acclimate to life as an invalid spinster. But the sea bathing helped her tremendously. We did exercises like these several times a week. By the time she left at the end of the summer, she was walking unaided. Even dancing.” He could hear the pride in her voice. “I received a letter from her just a month ago. She’s engaged. Her new betrothed is the heir to a barony. He’s very handsome, I’m given to understand.”

“Good for her. But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“How is it you’ve never married?”

A soft splash. “It’s an easy enough thing. Every morning I wake up, go about my day, and return to bed at night without having recited marriage vows. After several years, I have the trick of it down.”

The tone of her remark was easy, light—but he could tell there was a deeper emotion beneath it. “You can’t tell me no one ever asked.”

She didn’t tell him that.

“I never had any reason to marry,” she said. “I am my father’s only child, and there is no entail. His fortune and Summerfield will come to me, eventually. Though hopefully no time soon.”

“But security isn’t the only reason you might wish to marry. Don’t you want a husband and children? Or are you too modern for that?”

She was silent for a while. When she finally spoke, she said, “Turn around. Walk to that boulder, and then double back to this spot.”

He didn’t move, just crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh no. You can’t pull that trick with me.”

“What trick?”

“Deflecting an uncomfortable question by giving an order. It won’t work, not with me.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She tried to sound bored.

He wasn’t fooled. “Of course you do. Because you once accused me of doing the exact same thing.” He shook his head. “I’ve never met a woman like you. You’re so much like
me
. It’s as though we’re two examples of some rare, exotic breed. Only I’m the male specimen, and you’re the female. Clever as you are, you must know what that means.”

“Enlighten me.”

“It means we should mate. We have a responsibility to Nature.”

Laughing, she pushed a wave of spray in his direction. “You must have learned that line from your cousin. Does it work on other women?”

“What other women?” He barely remembered that other women existed. Tonight, they were like a waterlogged rendition of Adam and Eve, and this cove was their isolated Eden. For him, she was the only woman in the world.

God, he wanted her so fiercely. She could have no idea. With every erotic splash of her lithe body undulating in the water, his imagination ran wild. He pictured the two of them, linked in all manner of strange, salty embraces. His cock stiffened to a painful degree, jutting out in front of him despite the cold, carving his way through the water like the prow of a ship. The HMS
Priapism
.

“The boulder,” she reminded him. “March to the boulder and back.”

“Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll turn around, walk all the way to
that
boulder”—he pointed to one much farther distant, near the spindle—“and double back in under a minute’s time. But you must remain in that exact spot. And when I reach you, I want a reward for my pains.”

“Oh really? And what sort of reward would that be?”

“A kiss.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Come along.” He stood tall, shoulders and torso emerging from the water. Seawater traced cold rivulets down his chest and back. “You’ve been leading me a merry chase, weaving circles in the shingle as if we’re playing some foolish parlor game. I deserve a forfeit. A kiss.”

She shook her head. “After the other night? I know there’s no such thing as ‘just a kiss’ with you. We’re here to work on your knee.”

“Well, I’m not moving until I’m promised a kiss.”

She was silent for a moment. “Very well. A kiss. But you don’t get to kiss me. I will be the one to kiss you. Do you understand?”

Oh, he understood. He understood this little exercise of hers was about to become very interesting.

Energized with a new sense of motivation, he did just as he’d promised. He turned, covered the distance to the far boulder in large, powerful strides, and then he worked his way back to her. By the time he’d completed the circuit, his breath was a loud, painful rasp.

“Now,” he said, taking her by the waist and pulling her close. “Kiss me.”

The moon had emerged from behind a cloud, bathing her in silvery light. So beautiful. She could have been a water nymph, or a fierce, avenging angel. She framed his face in both her hands. Those elegant, yet so capable hands. He moved with her as she tugged his head down, reflexively wetting his lips in preparation.