An arm was holding her. Sinewy, hairy, masculine. She felt something else as well, also very masculine.
There was a man in her bed. An aroused man.
Her eyes flew open. With a panicked cry she struck at the man holding her down. Kicking and flailing with her fists she managed to stumble from the bed, dragging most of the bedclothes with her.
She staggered back and stared at the man in her bed.
He sat up, rubbing his chest. His naked chest. She tried not to stare. “Ouch,” he said conversationally. “You pack quite a wallop for a lady.” He gave her a sleepy grin. “But I forgive you. I trust you slept well. If so, my efforts were well rewarded.”
Was he entirely naked? she wondered. What she could see of him was naked. And she didn’t want to see any more. “Efforts? What efforts? And what are you doing here?” she demanded.
He just gave her a slow, wicked grin.
“What are you doing in my bed?” she repeated furiously.
He stretched and rubbed his head, looking impossibly handsome. “I’m not in your bed. You’re in my bed.”
“I am not.” She glanced around, and her jaw dropped. She was in his bedchamber. “Wh—How did I get here? Did you—”
“You walked in of your own accord.”
“I didn’t,” she said. She added, less certainly, “I wouldn’t.” Oh Lord, she thought, she might have . . .
He made no attempt to cover himself, seeming quite un-embarrassed by his naked chest and arms. Nell, feeling naked, despite her sturdy cotton nightgown, clutched bedclothes to her.
He leaned back on one elbow and regarded her from the remains of the bedclothes. “I guided you, I confess, but you came very willingly.”
“Nonsense,” she said defensively. “I don’t remember a thing.” She would die of embarrassment if he thought she’d come looking for him in the night and just climbed into his bed.
He gave her a searching look. “No, but you know you walk in your sleep. It’s happened before, hasn’t it? That’s why you were worried about there being no lock on the door.”
“Yes.” She collapsed onto a chair next to the bed, still clutching the bedclothes to her. He understood. Thank goodness. “At Mrs. Beasley’s I used to get one of the maids to lock me in at night. And at home, Aggie used to. I should have asked Cooper to sleep with me, but I thought . . . I hoped . . . It seemed . . . I didn’t want you to think I didn’t trust you.”
He asked curiously. “Have you always walked in your sleep?”
She shook her head. “Not since I was a little girl. It started after Mama died, but I grew out of it. It only started again after—” she broke off.
He nodded. “I know. You were searching for Torie.”
She put her head in her hands. “What am I going to do?”
“Not you—
we
. And we are going to find her,” he said briskly and swung his legs out of the bed. Nell stared. He wore a pair of white cotton drawers, but they disguised very little about his masculinity.
His very aroused masculinity. She’d felt it earlier, pressing against her.
Her thoughts of Torie were suddenly jerked away by the view of something much more immediately arresting. Her palm tingled with remembrance and blushing, she belatedly turned her head away. “Why didn’t you put me in my own bed?” she asked.
“I did.”
“What?” She turned. “Then why would I wake in your bed?” Her eyes strayed to his drawers.
“That’s not why I put you in my bed,” he told her. “The first time you wandered I tucked you back in your bed and thought nothing more about it. Ten minutes later there you were again, trying to climb out of the window. It was fairly apparent that I could either spend the night chasing around after you or take you back to my bed and keep you safe.”
“Safe?”
“Safe,” he repeated firmly. “And to make sure you slept properly. You did sleep better, didn’t you? You look better this morning that you have in the last few days.”
She thought about it. She did feel a little less worn than she had for a while. “I suppose I did.”
He nodded. “Good. So my plan worked perfectly . . . until you woke up. And started swinging punches.”
She gave an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”
He frowned. “I know. So who’s the blackguard you expected it to be?”
Nell wasn’t going to tell him that; not him, not anyone. She jumped up. “It’s getting late. The servants will be up and around any moment. I’d better go.”
“He raped you, didn’t he—the father of your baby?” Gray eyes bored into her.
She froze, her mind a sudden, scrambled blank.
He went on, “That’s why you woke in a panic just now.”
“No, I—”
“You panicked when you thought there was a man in your bed, but the moment you saw it was me, you calmed right down.” His mouth twisted ruefully. “Even though you might have cause for fearing me in my current state.”
She bit her lip. He couldn’t know: he couldn’t. She wasn’t going to tell him, wasn’t going to tell anyone. And she didn’t fear Sir Irwin—she hated him. She’d got a fright, that’s all. It had brought the memories back. But she’d rid herself of them before and she would again.
She would not let Sir Irwin play any role in her life. Not even as a vile memory. Or a nightmare.
Harry persisted. “That’s why your father took your baby away in the night, thinking he was doing the right thing by you, wasn’t it? Making restitution. Releasing you of the burden of raising a rapist’s child.”
“She’s
not
a rapist’s child; don’t you
ever
say such a filthy thing about my daughter again!” Nell flashed. “She’s mine, mine alone, and
nobody
else’s.
My
daughter, precious and pure and innocent.” And she ran from the room.
S
he’d been raped. The words echoed over and over in Harry’s head. Of course she had. It all made sense now. Who was the bastard? How had it happened? The questions ate at him.
The memory of their first real meeting suddenly twisted in him like a knife.
Christ! No wonder she hadn’t wanted a bar of him in Bath. Why would she want to know the man who, on first acquaintance, had forced a kiss on her? A very carnal kiss. And pressed his aroused body against her.
He closed his eyes and raked his fingers through his hair, and wondered yet again what the hell had possessed him. He’d never done anything remotely like it in his life. He’d always treated women with the utmost respect. And yet he’d behaved like a boor to the most compelling woman he’d ever met.
She’d been violated in the worst way . . .
And then he’d forced her into a situation where she was compelled to marry him.
God, but she must despise him. He swore again and punched the bed.
Ten
“
I
shall ride with Nell in the hired chaise this morning,” declared Lady Gosforth at breakfast. “You can ride your horse, Harry. I wish to have private conversation with my niece-to-be.”
Nell swallowed. Had Lady Gosforth found out where Nell had spent the night? Was Nell about to get a lecture on morality?
She glanced at Harry. His eyes smoldered with the questions she’d managed to avoid this morning.
On the other hand a lecture on morality might be preferable to an inquisition. She had, after all, done nothing wrong.
“That would be delightful,” Nell said briskly. “And I’m sure Harry would enjoy a good gallop. He needs one.” She hoped he could take a hint. She didn’t look at him but concentrated on buttering a piece of toast she had no desire for. She ate it anyway. It was better than meeting that knife-edged glance across the table.
“Excellent,” Lady Gosforth said. “Then we ladies shall have a comfortable coze.”
Harry helped first his aunt, then Nell into the hired chaise, giving Nell a be-it-on-your-own-head look as he did. “She never stops talking,” he murmured.
Nell didn’t mind. It was having to talk about herself that she dreaded. Lady Gosforth was every bit as likely as her nephew to interrogate Nell, and she’d be far less tolerant, Nell was sure.
“My basket!” Lady Gosforth called sharply as Harry was about to close the door. Her dresser, Bragge, passed in a large, covered basket.
Nell stared at the basket, feeling a little sick. It was in just such a basket that Papa had taken Torie away, only without the cover . . .
It was stupid, Nell knew, but for a few moments, she could not breathe.
Lady Gosforth placed the basket on the seat beside her. She undid the catch and flipped open the lid. The basket was lined with blue cotton, not white satin, and contained dozens of skeins of fine white wool.
Nell started to breathe again.
“I knit,” Lady Gosforth explained, seeing Nell staring. “Unfashionable, I know, but it’s useful and it relaxes me. I can’t bear embroidery or all that nonsense. I like to make something that can be used.”
Nell nodded, as if she was listening. One more day, she told herself. One more day and they would be in London. Tomorrow morning . . .
The carriage moved off with a lurch and Lady Gosforth pulled out a thick twisted loop of wool. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked Nell, leaning forward.
“Not at all.”
“Slip your hands into the center of the skein—see how it’s one big loop? Both hands now, hold them apart—that’s it. I see you’ve done this before.”
Nell nodded. “Yes, but not for years.” She’d wound wool with Aggie when she was a little girl, but when Aggie’s fingers had got stiff she’d stopped knitting.
“Now as soon as I find the end . . . Ah here it is.” With brisk movements Lady Gosforth began to wind the fine wool around her fingers, forming the beginning of a little ball. Nell dipped first one hand then the other, releasing the yarn from the loose skein.
For a long time they were silent. They passed out of Marlborough and hit the open road. It was quite pleasant, Nell thought, winding wool and watching the countryside slip by.
“When did you first meet my nephew?” Lady Gosforth asked.
An interrogation after all.
“In a sense, we met in a forest. It was raining, and he was very kind to me,” Nell said. She didn’t want to explain what had happened in the forest. Something special and magical and private had passed between them that day, and she didn’t want to explain it, even if she could. Somehow, she felt it would ruin it if she told. Because in one sense it was nothing, a small, insignificant incident or strangers on a road . . .
“Really, we only met properly when he came to my home—at least, it used to be my home. Firmin Court.”
“When Harry bought it?”
“Yes.”
“That was the first time you met?” Lady Gosforth looked puzzled.
“Properly, yes. To have a conversation, I mean.” The few words he’d uttered in the forest that day couldn’t count as conversation.
“And the next time?”
“In the Pump Room in Bath. You were there,” Nell reminded her.
Lady Gosforth nearly dropped her ball of wool. “You mean that time in the Pump Room was the second time you’d talked to my nephew? The third occasion you’d met?”
Nell nodded.
“Good God!” She wound wool for a long time, frowning. “I would never have believed it. Three times. He told me he’d offered you marriage twice before, and you’d rejected him twice.”
“That’s right.”
“You mean he proposed marriage the first time he met you?”
Nell nodded. “He was just being kind, though. I’d just lost my home and everything I owned.”
Lady Gosforth frowned. “A man who is still unmarried at the age of nine-and-twenty does not propose to be kind, young woman. Otherwise he would be married long since. And the Harry I know does not ask for
anything
. Ever. Let alone after he’s been rejected twice.”
“This last time, he didn’t exactly ask me,” Nell pointed out dryly.
“Yes and that’s even more extraordinary.” She regarded Nell thoughtfully. “I think there’s more to this than the two of you are letting on.”
Nell braced herself.
“But no matter, I dare say it’s none of my business,” Lady Gosforth said briskly. “I wanted to talk to you about Harry and also Gabriel. Do you know who I mean?”
“His brother,” Nell said.
“His half brother, yes.” She fixed a stern gaze on Nell. “You do know the circumstances of Harry’s birth, don’t you?”
Nell nodded. “Yes, he was very careful to explain it from the beginning.”
“Good. You know there is a schism in the family?”
“No, I know very little about his family, apart from the occasional mention of Gabe—and you, of course.”
Lady Gosforth nodded. “I thought as much. Did he tell you that when I first met Harry I wanted nothing to do with him.”
Nell looked at her, surprised.
Lady Gosforth arched her eyebrows. “Well, why would I? My brother’s by-blow?”
Nell stiffened. She clenched her fists inside the skein of wool and said nothing.
Lady Gosforth continued. “Gabriel, too. Naturally I took my brother’s side and according to him Gabriel was a cuckoo in his nest, to all intents and purposes a bastard. He was wrong, of course, but my brother was a stubborn and unforgiving man. And certainly someone like Harry—an accident with a maidservant—was far beneath our notice.”
“An accident with a maidservant?” Nell said angrily. “What a vile way to speak of anyone.”
Harry’s aunt gave her a searching look. “It offends you, does it?”
“It does,” Nell said, meeting Lady Gosforth’s gaze squarely.
Lady Gosforth smiled. “Good for you, my dear. It offends me, too, now, but that’s what I thought at the time.” Her smile faded. “Let me tell you the whole story—it’s a tale I think you should know.”
She’d come to a broken thread, so there was a pause while they searched for the new end. Once they’d found it, Lady Gosforth continued. “Gabriel and Harry were brought up by my aunt Gert, a formidable woman who went her own way in all things.”