Forbidden Lord (4 page)

Eleanor raised her brows and bit back a sharp retort. She did not want to be at odds with Catherine over this. She would soon be gone from this dark house, and for now her only weapon against Catherine was her pride. But how she wished things could have been different between them. Somehow she forced a smile to her lips.

‘Come, Catherine,' she said gently, taking her hand and
leading her to the
toilette
table, sitting her down and beginning to brush her hair, which always had a soothing effect on her. ‘We'll speak no more of Lord Marston. He's of no consequence.'

‘How easy that is for you to say. Doing so is another matter entirely.'

Closing her eyes, Catherine gave herself up to the soothing brush strokes. Strangely, when she considered the moment when she had first become aware of William's presence, her gaze had been drawn to his servant. Over the top of her goblet her narrowed eyes had focused on the shaggy-haired giant. As if he had felt her eyes on him, he had met her gaze head-on. His look had been bold, rude, without the respect she was entitled to as Frederick Atwood's daughter and Henry Wheeler's wife. But there had also been admiration in his insolent stare and she enjoyed being able to wield that kind of power over a man—any man, including that uncouth, unkempt giant.

‘You are Lady Wheeler,' Eleanor said softly, ‘married to one of the wealthiest merchants in London. He is a good man who will make you a good husband, and you must try and take pride in that, for you cannot go back to being Catherine Atwood. The day when you would have married William Marston is gone. Put him from your mind, Catherine, otherwise it will eat away at you and you will become embittered. This is your wedding night and your husband is impatient for your ladies to put you to bed and be gone.'

‘Yes, yes, you're right—and thank goodness Henry agreed to forgo the bedding ritual and I don't have to suffer the indignity of having an audience to watch us consummate our marriage. But wherever William has been these past three years, whatever his desires, it was wrong of him to treat me so abominably.'

This was the first time Eleanor had heard Catherine utter angry, reproachful words against William Marston. Catherine had hoped for loyalty and some degree of affection from him,
but she had received neither. The man truly was a monster, and she had willingly placed herself in his hands for the time it would take them to reach Hollymead.

 

Eleanor could not control the apprehension in her heart, or her sense of dark foreboding, when, just before dawn when the house still slept, with her heart racing, carrying her bag and her father's sword, she made her way down the long cold stairway at the back of the house. Servants were sleeping all over the place. The upper servants had their own rooms while the lower servants bedded down more indiscriminately on landings, in the scullery, the hall, anywhere.

Intending to leave by the kitchen, slipping inside she glanced around the candle-lit interior. Two young scullions were curled up under blankets on the kitchen floor. Having washed all the silver and pewter plates and wooden trenchers from the banquet, exhausted, they had fallen to sleep, warmed by the dying embers of the fire in the great hearth of the big arched fireplace.

She was about to cross to the door to the outer yard between the buttery and the brewhouse when a man's hand came from behind her and clamped itself round her upper arm. She spun round.

‘Well, well, well. Now where do you think you're creeping off to at this hour?' Sir Richard's hard eyes raked over her, taking in her male attire, her leather bag in one hand and the sword in the other, ticking off each damning piece of evidence against her.

Eleanor quailed. He knew! Somehow he had found out, and she was experienced enough to realise she would be foolish to pretend otherwise. Tiny shards of fear pricked her spine while a coldness congealed in the pit of her stomach.

‘So, you're running away, Mistress Collingwood,' he said smoothly, ‘sneaking away like a thief before cock crow to meet Lord Marston. Did you think when he mentioned he was
going north that I wouldn't know what was in your head—that you're so desperate to get away from here that you'd forget he was the one responsible for sending your father to the block? I may have vacated my chair, but I heard every word Marston said. So did my uncle, and I believe if you don't leave now you will have him to contend with.'

Taken off guard by the hectoring tone, Eleanor felt her heart almost ceased to beat. She was aware of the power of the man the voice belonged to, could feel it closing around her like the sharp metal teeth of an animal trap.

‘I haven't forgotten. I'll never forget,' Eleanor replied, breathing deep with anger as she pulled herself together, ‘and you're right, I am so desperate to get away from here, from my stepfather and his warped mind, that I'd do anything to achieve that—even if it means swallowing my pride and resentment and asking Lord Marston to help me. Yes, I hate him, but I hate my stepfather more.'

‘I know you do—I always thought so—and you'd do well to fear him if you know what's good for you. But how long will it be before you fall for that arrogant lord like any other smitten virgin? 'Tis true he's a handsome devil, but to those who know him he's a cold one. A man can see it in his eyes.'

Eleanor remembered the vibrancy of those crystal-clear orbs, filled with an intensity that no one could deny, and they had been anything but cold.

‘Did Marston agree to take you with him when you asked him so prettily?' Sir Richard laughed low in his throat. ‘It's as well I returned to my seat as he was leaving. I was watching you, knowing I would only have to bide my time before you tried to sneak away.'

Driven by self-preservation and a determination to escape, Eleanor stepped away from him. ‘What's it to you, Sir Richard? I am leaving this place. Do not try to stop me.'

‘I have no intention of stopping you, Mistress Collingwood, in fact it's in my own interest that you go—I'd even go
so far as to encourage it, since you get in the way of what I want. Although no matter how brave you feel, you cannot escape my uncle, you know.'

‘You're damn right she can't,' came a low, angry voice behind Sir Richard.

Suddenly a dishevelled Frederick Atwood stumbled towards Eleanor and grasped her arm, causing her to drop her possessions. She didn't know what warped conceits made this man what he was, but she knew that the rebuff she had given him two nights ago must have festered in his head. ‘Damn your eyes! You let me go,' she flared.

‘Never—you, a lass who fancies herself stronger than me and shows it. Well, permit me to tell you something,' he hissed, thrusting his face close to hers, his breath reeking of stale ale and his cocksure smile having acquired a malevolent twist. ‘I'm a man who doesn't hold on being put down by a girl—although I'll admit that's part of your charm that attracts me.'

Even though Frederick was still affected by the immense quantities of liquor he had consumed at the wedding feast, and angered by the knowledge that she was sneaking away from Fryston Hall, his lustful cravings were sharpened by the sight of her shapely figure outlined in male attire.

Writhing this way and that, Eleanor managed to wrench herself away from him. His face flushed crimson as his rage showed white around his hard, glittering eyes. He followed her as she danced this way and that to avoid his hands, big, grasping hands.

‘Stay away from me,' she warned, incensed, throwing a ladle at him—it sailed over his shoulder and clattered on the stone floor at an amused Sir Richard's feet. Her stepfather advanced on her and she heaved a crock off the table. It hit the floor in front of him and exploded in a shower of pot and flour. ‘You're a pitiful excuse for a man, Frederick Atwood. You revolt and disgust me and I want none of you.'

‘Such cruelty, Eleanor, such ingratitude. Have I not given
you my protection and a home? I gave a service and I never give anything without a service being rendered in return.'

His arrogance fuelled Eleanor's fury. ‘Have you no honour, no decency? Have you no shame? For shame it would bring Catherine if she knew her lecherous father was lusting after her stepsister.'

His arching gaze turned to a leer that mentally stripped Eleanor of her clothing. It turned her blood to ice.

‘Catherine is abed with her husband—as every dutiful wife should be. Let's hope she proves to be more fruitful than her mother,' he growled, having resented his first wife for not giving him a healthy son, only dead ones. He advanced towards Eleanor on stumbling, drunken legs as she edged towards the door.

Catching her arm roughly, he threw her away from the door. Losing her balance, she fell, hitting her shoulder heavily on the edge of one of the two huge oak tables necessary in a kitchen of that size. Recovering herself quickly, she hauled herself up, set her jaw and flared her hatred through the sudden fear that threatened to engulf her as they circled the kitchen like two wild animals, half-crouched. He had her cornered, his teeth showing in a ragged snarl as he bore down on her, and then suddenly he slumped at her feet when Sir Richard hit him on the back of the head with a heavy candlestick.

Eleanor stared at Sir Richard in startled amazement. ‘Why did you do that?'

‘I told you, I want you out of this house, out of London, and I think York is far enough away. But have a care,' he said, placing the candlestick on the table and looking down at his uncle's crumpled form with a baleful eye. ‘He'll not let it rest at this. He has no idea it was me who rendered him senseless—being addled with drink, he'll assume it was you.' With a smirk on his lips he turned and sauntered towards the door, where he turned and looked back at her. ‘Have a good journey, Mistress Collingwood. You are going to need all the luck you can get if you are to survive my uncle's vengeance.'

Paying scant notice to the two scullions, who had been rudely wakened when the crock hit the floor, their eyes as wide as plates as they gaped at their master's inert form, Eleanor grasped the bag and her father's sword, which she had dropped when her stepfather had brutally taken hold of her.

With her heart in her mouth and a prayer on her lips, with one last look at her stepfather—feeling no remorse, only a weary sense of satisfaction—Eleanor lifted the wooden latch of the heavy door. Stepping outside, she was a slight shadow in a world of shadows. Pulling the brim of her hat down to shield her face from the driving rain and drawing her thick-lined cloak tightly against her, she sped across the courtyard.

Reaching the stables, she slipped inside, straining her eyes in the dim light as the familiar smells of horses, hay and dung assailed her nostrils. Loud snoring came from the loft, where grooms and stable boys were sleeping off the effects of the festivities. When she had quickly saddled her beloved horse Tilda with the rain lashing the walls of the house she was soon away and galloping into the darkness.

There was danger in her flight from Fryston Hall, but despite the pain in her injured shoulder Eleanor felt her spirits soar at her freedom. She didn't look back.

 

When she rode into the yard of the White Swan the rain had ceased to fall, but the wind was still strong. A sign above the portal squeaked and swung wildly and straw blew frenziedly about the puddle-laden cobbled yard. Horses were being harnessed and yoked up to carriages, and ostlers and stable boys all went about their work.

Dressed in thigh-length boots and leather jerkin, Lord Marston was getting ready to leave. With his back to her and unaware that he was being observed, Eleanor paused. His dark head was slightly bent as he secured the saddle girth. Beneath his leather jerkin his muscles flexed as he worked.
Her gaze took in the sheer male power of his wide, muscular shoulders, his broad back and narrow waist.

‘Good morning,' she greeted quietly, dismounting, knowing she would have to set the hostility she felt for this man aside for the time they would be on the road, which would be no easy matter.

William turned his head and his eyes swept over her. Surprise registered in their depths at the picture she presented. It was quickly concealed and he returned to his task. ‘You're late.'

‘I don't think so.' Her tone was truculent. ‘I have gone to a great deal of trouble to get here early, in case you thought to slip off without me.'

‘I have no doubt at all, Mistress Collingwood, that if we had you would have soon caught up with us.' Straightening and resting one arm on his horse's back, he cocked an eye at her. ‘I hope your temper has improved from last night—although you do look somewhat jaded.'

Eleanor's eyes struck sparks of indignation. ‘That's because I haven't been to bed.'

His eyes sharpened, going over her outlandish short-cropped coat beneath her cloak and thick black hose, which outlined her long legs above soft knee-high boots—the clothes she hoped would disguise her gender. ‘Have you any idea what you look like?' He eyed her shapely legs in the most insolent manner as he shoved himself away from his horse and circled her like a predator.

‘A youth, I hope.' His insolent perusal brought an indignant scowl to her face.

‘Never have I seen a youth who looks less like a youth than you do, Mistress Collingwood.'

The deep sound of his voice curled around her name with a soft intimacy that caused heat to rise in Eleanor's face.

‘I suppose some poor devil will be missing his clothes.'

‘I found them in a trunk some time ago. I don't know who they belonged to, but they're near enough my size to be ser
viceable. As long as this wretched wind doesn't blow my hat off, everyone will think I'm a lad. Oh, and I have some money, so I can pay my way.'

William cocked a brow at the sight of a pistol and dagger in the black sash about her slender waist and a sword attached to a baldric across her chest. ‘You also come armed to the teeth, I see,' he remarked drily. ‘You can use them, I hope, otherwise 'tis pointless carrying them—and you're in danger of tripping over your sword.'