Edith Layton (11 page)

Christian hadn’t gone to sleep again. He’d heard Anthony and the runner go up the stair and into Anthony’s room. He’d waited until he heard the runner leave and walk unsteadily back to his own rooms, and the inn fell silent again.

Christian waited until he could no longer endure hearing his own heartbeat. Only then had he left his room again, this time dressed properly. He had to go outside to greet the clean promise of a new day.

It had been a bad night, but he’d had worse. Now he had only to wait for rising dawn to show him the road, and he’d walk until he’d erased the last of the night. A long walk down country lanes in the cool silence of a new morning would be like balm to his soul.

But he didn’t know the roads and had to wait for the light to rise. He stood in the darkness, watching the mists turn gray. And so he blinked when he thought he saw a single horseman appear out the vapors, riding down the road toward the inn. His interest was caught, and he watched warily, waiting for the figure to emerge from the fog, wondering who it could be.

If it were a traveler, it would have to be a mad or a
desperate one to risk his neck riding through the night. A peddler wouldn’t visit when even the lowest kitchen maid was still asleep. It could be someone bringing news, or fresh eggs, or someone employed at the inn, coming to work. But still, Christian’s hand slid inside his jacket as he waited for the horseman to come closer.

If the fellow had reason to be here, Christian’s pistol would never be withdrawn. But there were too many other reasons for a man to come stealthily toward a sleeping house. It was also true that the figure might only be a phantasm of the mists, born of lingering nightmare and fed by constant apprehension. Christian knew, too well, that he couldn’t kill his nightmares. But the feel of his pistol in his hand steadied him.

Now he heard sound of muted hooves on the road and knew it was no product of imagination. He prepared himself as the rider came near.

“The devil!” Christian exclaimed when the mists parted again.

“Christian?” a soft voice asked incredulously, as the rider bent low to try to look at him, “Is that you? Oh, what luck! But what are you doing here? How did you know I was coming?”

“My God, Julianne,” he said in astonishment, catching her horse’s reins so he could look up into her face. “What are you doing here at this ungodly hour?”

“I came to see you. I had to see you before anyone else did.”

He reached up to help her from the saddle. She put
out her own arms and slid straight down into his.

And then he caught her up in his embrace, and she went willingly. She only made a soft sound when their lips met; but, by then, neither was listening to anything but the blood that was beating so loudly in their veins.

S
he’d been so anxious, so afraid. Julianne’s boldness had dwindled with every fearful minute as she crept, caped and soft-footed, out of the squire’s house.

If she hadn’t been more worried about what would happen if she didn’t warn Christian than about what might happen if she were caught at it, she’d have stayed in bed. But she couldn’t sleep because she kept thinking of the danger he was in, and knew she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try to do something to help. And, after all, she kept reminding herself, in the unlikely event that anyone saw her, she’d simply explain that she thought she was doing it for the best. Let them think she was foolish. The worst they could do to her would be to send her home. They meant to do a lot worse to him.

She’d waited until the night was almost over, but it was still murky outside and a lot quieter than she’d imagined. It had been a long time since she’d been out of doors, alone, at that hour. It had been never, actually, she realized as her horse’s ears had gone back
at a shrill whistle made by some unknown creature in the misty night.

At first, she’d been afraid her horse would stumble, but that was less of a fear as her own eyes adjusted to the dying night. Then she’d been fearful of every sound. When the breeze picked up and flapped a branch near her face as she rode by, she’d had a lively moment trying to avoid all the bats she imagined were winging home, headed straight into her hair instead.

Then, as she’d neared the White Hart at last and seen a figure standing solitary and lost in the shredding mists, she’d wondered whether to go on. She did, deciding it would be a servant she could tell some faradiddle about getting lost on her morning ride. Who else but a servant would be up at such an hour?

And then, against all sense and reason, she’d seen that it was Christian himself rising from the mists like a man in some romantic dream. She’d come close and looked down at him. He’d raised his hands to her, she’d seen his pale handsome face clear, reached out to him, and lost all her sense and reason when she found herself slipping into his arms.

He kissed her, with her willing cooperation. His lips were cool, but they soon warmed against hers. She forgot herself, the dank dawn; she was enveloped in the heat of his kiss, his body taut against hers. She reached up a hand to touch his face and felt how cold his cheek was, how damp with chill dew, his hair. He shuddered at her touch, and she didn’t know if it was from passion or cold. It broke the spell.

She stepped back, bewildered and afraid—for him. “Are you well?” she asked.

Because now she could see his face more clearly, and he looked hollow-eyed and haunted. It made him even more desperately attractive to her, but she wondered why he looked so raddled and weary, his eyes searching her face as though he thought she had an answer he’d been urgently seeking.

“I’d be better if you came close again,” he said.

“But I would not,” she said, eyes down, shaking out her riding skirt for something to do. “I don’t know why I did that, and I wish you’d forget it,” she murmured distractedly.

“Oh, never,” he said. “What in God’s good name are you doing here?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

Now his voice was as low, calm, and amused as ever. It brought back the wits his kiss had scatted for her. “I’ll tell you. Can we walk a way?” she asked nervously, looking around. “I don’t want to be seen.”

“Of course. Good. You
do
want to be alone with me.”

“That is
not
what I meant,” she said. She saw his teasing smile and how it restored him, and felt her heart unclench. “Look, I came to tell you something,” she whispered, “but I don’t want anyone to know. Please?”

He took her horse’s reins and walked down the lane and into the rising mists with her.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Wait until we get someplace where we can’t be seen from the inn. I haven’t long. I have to be back before the household wakes.”

They walked in silence until they came to a meadow, round a bend. Then he stopped. “They won’t see us here. What is it, Julianne?”

“I had to tell you that the baronet, Maurice Sauvage, came yesterday and is staying with the squire now.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Her shoulders slumped. “
You do?
Oh, Lud. I came all the way here, sat up half the night in a fever of apprehension. I was so frightened.” She spoke more to herself than to him. “…faced bats and who knows what, and risked my reputation to tell you something you already knew?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it. And don’t forget the kiss, that was lovely, too.”

“Forget the kiss,” she said quickly.

“Not likely. But why did you do all this for me? I was going to see you this afternoon. Julie?” he asked suddenly, urgently. “I
am
still going to see you? Or have they forbidden you?”

“No, I mean, yes. I’ll see you, but Sophie and Hammond are coming, too, so I won’t be able to talk freely.”

“And my cousin Maurice? Will he be there?”

“No. He’s going to invite you to dine with him at the squire’s.”

“I see,” he said. “So why the urgency?”

She looked away from him, staring out into the meadow, absently noting that she could now see the fences standing like ghostly sentinels in the swirling mists. “Because the baronet told me what would become of you if you aren’t really Christian. And I
don’t want to see that happen.” She turned to him again, her voice low and earnest. “I don’t think a man should be punished just for something he plans. The punishment would be very harsh, you see. Imprisonment, and maybe, if you were successful in getting the title and they proved you lied, maybe even…” She couldn’t go on.

“Death?” he said, sparing her the effort. “Well, that would be better than imprisonment, actually. But you think that would be my fate?” He asked, bending his head, trying to see her expression. “You don’t believe I’m who I say I am?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Honestly, I do not. You seem to be, then I’m not sure. I do know that whoever you are, I don’t want to see you cruelly punished. After all, you haven’t
done
anything yet. That’s why I came. Because the baronet believes you aren’t Christian. And from the way he speaks, he either has or expects to have evidence of that soon.”

He didn’t move. “Really? What makes you think that?” he asked in an altered voice.

She lowered her gaze.

“You came all this way, and you’ve nothing to tell me?” he asked with what sounded like amused affection.

“He said,” she hesitated, and then said in a rush, “he said he’d found out your father, that is—I mean, Geoffrey Sauvage, adopted two brothers around the same age as his son when he was in the antipodes. He took them as his wards, said they were also his sons.” She raised her eyes to his. “Is that so?”

“It’s a matter of record,” he said evenly.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice.

“Why should it matter?”

“He wonders if you’re one of them, instead of being Christian. Because he doesn’t believe you are Christian, and he thinks boys would share stories, and that might be how you knew so much about my brother.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?” he said, his voice even and expressionless. “Do you think I’m one of those boys?”

She shook her head, and said miserably, “I don’t know.”

“I see.” He smiled. “So then, nothing’s changed, has it?”

“Of course it has!” she said, astonished. “If you aren’t Christian, that means that the net is tightening around you, and you must leave now! Look,” she said anxiously, “I came to warn you. Maybe you ought to cut loose now, leave before any harm is done.”

“And you, Julianne?” he asked, looking at her strangely. “What do you think?” He watched her closely, seeing her face dreamlike in the swirling mists, the mist bedewing her hair, her eyes wide and innocent looking. His mouth tightened. “I suppose,” he said softly, “I should know that already. After all, it’s very strange that a well-bred young woman, or at least one who keeps protesting that she is, would go flying off into the night in order to confront a possible criminal by herself. And all to warn him to be gone or he’ll be hurt. Are you such a Good Samaritan then? Or is it possible you were moved by something I can more easily understand?”

She stared at him with incomprehension.

“Or could it have been done out of lust?” he mused. “For money? The baronet has full pockets, and he’d love me to disappear so he could keep scandal from the name. And whatever I did or did not, my name is scandal. The squire’s well larded, too, if not a Midas, and he has better reason to pay well to see the back of me, because he wants his daughter to marry Egremont and have all its treasures. Either of them, or both, could have come down heavy to finance this little mission of mercy of yours.”

“You could think that—of me?” she asked, taking a step back, as though he’d run mad and she was afraid he’d turn violent.

He shrugged. “I could believe that of anyone, especially now, when there’s a ripe plum for the plucking, and my giving it up would benefit so many people.”

“How would it benefit me?” she asked furiously. “I don’t need money. And no one could pay me to do anything! I’m not rich, but I’m not needy.”

His smile was not merry. “So my father and I said, so long ago, when we were accused of stealing. No one believed us then, or it seems, even now. So you may be telling the truth. But you did seem to need my kisses. Aye, that makes even more sense. Money may not be it after all.

“Is that it?” he murmured, as if to himself. “There are women who are drawn to danger, God, I know that well enough. The guards at Newgate often made a good haul out of a man’s last night. There were females who paid great sums to spend those final hours in the condemned man’s arms, no matter what the
poor cove looked like. He could have had a face like the back side of a shovel, and a body only good for crow bait, still often as not he got a chance to bed a wealthy mort his last night on earth—some of them highbred, too.” He hitched a shoulder in a tic of a shrug. “Some females get a thrill out of making love to a man they know will soon be a corpse.”

The increasing light showed his lips set in a crooked smile that was almost a sneer. “I didn’t think you were like that, Julianne,” he said. “But then, you say you still don’t know me. And so it stands to reason that I really don’t know you either, do I?”

She slapped the sneer from his face.

Then she stood wide-eyed, staring at him, as horrified by her action as he’d been surprised by it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, aghast.

“I’m not,” he said, and pulled her in his arms.

He only held her. She buried her face in his shoulder and trembled with shock. “Shhh,” he said into her ear, “don’t fret. I deserved that. In fact, thank you. Whatever you think of me, I do know you, Julianne. I just forgot that because I’ve known too many women who aren’t like you.”

He stroked her hair, and put his lips on her cheek.

“No,” she said quietly. “Don’t kiss me, please.”

She felt his lips turn up in a smile. “I can hardly do that now, can I? After what I said? I’ve ruined that chance for myself now, haven’t I?”

She pulled back to look at him, winced when she saw his reddened cheek, and opened her lips to tell him: No, he had not. Then she realized: Yes, he had.

But then he kissed her, and she found she had nothing to say.

It was a sweet, almost innocent kiss, with nothing of heat, or tongues, or searching hands, only all their hearts.

He raised his head and smiled at her. And then she lost her head and pulled his down to hers again.

This time their kiss was intense. It was cool and damp in the meadow because the sun was still only a promise. But his body was warm as she pressed against him, and his hand on her breast was warmer. He ran a hand through her hair; he traced the shape of her face and measured it with soft kisses. His hands caressed her back from shoulders to hips as he pulled her closer still. He lowered his head, and his lips trailed shivery fire on the breast he bared as he slipped one button after the other from their fastenings on her gown. His mouth was hot as the center of the sun as it closed over the tip of her breast, and the touch of his tongue spread flames to ignite the very center of her body. He kissed her lips again, and they breathed in rhythmic concert so they wouldn’t have to stop.

He finally exposed both breasts to his gaze. He leaned slightly back and sighed. And his smile was as soft as his gaze was intent when he gently cupped one breast and lowered his head to the other.

And then, with a shudder, she pulled away.

He resisted her for a heartbeat, and she realized how strong his slender body was, because she couldn’t move. But then he let her go.

“Why stop?” he asked, hands at his sides, his eyes half-lidded.

“Why?” she echoed, flustered, trying to straighten her gown and her thoughts at the same time. “My goodness, Christian, have you never known a decent woman?”

“Few,” he said, “but still, why? You wanted to.”

“I can’t, we can’t,” she said in an agonized voice. “Don’t you know?”

“No one will know, no one has to if we don’t want them to.”

“But I will,” she said. “Oh, Christian, I’m not the sort of woman I always am when I’m with you.” She stopped, hearing herself.

“I can’t do such things,” she said, looking down as she continued to fasten her gown. “Lud!” she muttered. “I don’t know why I even did that. I think it’s because I somehow feel I know you. Or because I’m far from home and find myself so alone…I know men have a word for women who let them think they will and then will not. I’m sorry, because even if you have every right to use that name, you haven’t, and I thank you for it…”

She muttered in agitation as she tried to do up her gown again. The rising light showed her so rosy and well kissed that he clenched his hands to keep from dragging her back into his arms. But he was expert at dampening his urgency, he was practiced at restraint, and best of all for that restraint, now he was amused.

“You don’t find me at all appealing?” he asked with a straight face.