"How can you live this way?" he cried. "How can you allow them to plan every moment of your life?"
"Do you think the way your people live is any better?" she fired back. "The women of Hawkesmere have no choices. Nor do the peasants. And those who do have choices are usually greedy, capricious and cruel."
She was right, of course. He scrubbed a hand across his face. "I do not want to fight with you, Rhoswen. But I cannot stay here as your caged pet, no matter how tempting the prospect."
“What are you saying?” The anger had disappeared from her voice. Now she just sounded tired and resigned. “If you have already made up your mind about something, you might as well tell me.”
“Your father and I have reached an agreement,” he admitted, feeling tired and resigned himself. “He will give me the medicines I need and allow me to leave. In exchange, I will do my best to send Trevelan home to you.”
“You were just going to leave? Without telling me? Without taking me?” She sank into the chair across from him and stared at him beseechingly, all her coldness vanished in the wake of obvious emotion.
Which side of her was real? The tender lover or the ice princess? He truly did not know and was not sure he would ever be able to tell.
“I was going to tell you. Later. And as for taking you — Christ, are you insane? If I have my way, you will never set foot upon the Surface again. It is too dangerous, and you are terrible at fitting in. You do not belong there, which is obvious for anyone with eyes in their head to see. If it were not for me, you would have come to a bad end in Hawkesmere, Rhoswen. We both know it.”
She flushed and buried her face in her hands. “How are you going to help Trevelan when your brother would sooner have you dead than look at you?”
“I will throw myself upon his mercy,” he answered tightly, refusing to admit, even to himself, that Simon’s mercy was not a thing to gamble upon. “He will listen to me. I will make him listen.”
“What if there was another way? What if I could get you into Hawkesmere, into your tower, undetected?”
He narrowed his gaze, sensing he was not going to like what she was about to tell him. “How on Earth could you do that?”
“There’s a secret passage that ends in the hot springs beneath your tower.”
“More secrets.” He shook his head, disgusted by all the things she had hidden from him. “If this tunnel exists, why did you not use it to escape? I left you alone down there for nearly an hour.”
“I couldn’t find it,” she admitted. “But I know it’s there somewhere. The entrance should be easier to find from the other side.”
“Perhaps you should draw me a map,” he conceded reluctantly, seeing how such a thing could aid his quest. “It would be good to have another way in.”
She shook her head and lifted her gaze, meeting his with grim determination. “I won’t draw you a map. But I’ll show you. If you take me with you.”
He pushed his food away. Her words had destroyed his appetite. “Absolutely not. Your father would never allow it, and neither will I. Everything I have done during the past few days, every risk I have taken, was so I could see you safely home where you belonged.”
“How can you expect me to sit here and wait? Not knowing whether you made it? Not knowing whether you found Trevelan? This whole thing is my fault. If I wouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, we wouldn’t have left Trevelan behind, and you’d have been able to help your people when they needed you. Please, Sebastian. I’m begging you. Give me the chance to help make this right.”
“There is nothing you can do.” Her words and recent insistence on the importance of order in Halcyon made it obvious that Trevelan was her only concern, and he was more determined than ever to keep her here where she belonged. “You will only impede my efforts.”
“I won’t,” she cried. “I swear I won’t. I can help you get there, and then I can help Trevelan return to Halcyon, so you can remain at your precious Hawkesmere.”
“Cease this nonsense!” He scrambled to his feet and held up one hand to quell any more argument. “I will not take you, Rhoswen. Nothing you can say will change my mind.”
A bullheaded look settled upon her fair features, but she remained quiet.
“Thank you,” he told her, trying to soften his tone but finding it incredibly difficult. “Now, if you do not mind, I am going to try out that shower, then sleep for a few hours so I will be ready to leave when your father comes for me in the morning. I would appreciate it if you would just let me do what I must without any further arguments.
“I’ll make you a tray and leave it by the bed,” she said, after a long moment of obvious internal battle. “You need to eat.”
He nodded and strode from the room, entering the bathing room and leaning heavily upon the door as he tried to bring his rioting emotions under control. He wished like hell there was somewhere else to go, but the apartment was simply too small. Like it or not, they were stuck with each other for the next twenty-four hours.
With a deep sigh, he finally found the strength to push himself away from the door and disrobe. It took him a moment, but he found the right knob to get the water in the shower running. He stepped beneath the steaming waterfall, gasping a bit as the water hit his wound.
Wonderful.
The shower was everything he had dreamed it would be, but without Rhoswen by his side, the entire experience seemed empty. Jesu Christ, it would be hard to leave her, especially when she was begging him to take her with him. Despite the danger, he could not help wanting to prolong this thing between them for as long as possible.
He prayed for the strength to resist her pleas.
Chapter Twenty
Rhoswen stood in her bedroom doorway, watching Sebastian sleep, her heart in her throat. If she had ever seen anything more beautiful in her life, she couldn’t remember it. He lay sprawled on his stomach across her bed, a towel wrapped around his lean hips, his disheveled sable hair spread across his broad shoulders and the white sheets.
He’d shaved, and his lips looked soft and lush against the harsh planes of his aristocratic features. The thought of never kissing him again, never touching that hard, muscular body brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them rapidly away, determined to stay strong. She needed to keep her wits about her if she were going to persuade him to take her with him back to Hawkesmere.
His arguments made sense. If she went with him, she’d only slow him down. She’d get in his way, and she feared his concern for her would take away the edge he’d need to do what had to be done. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything in her defense other than her need to stay with him just a little longer.
If she let him leave Halcyon without her, she knew she’d never see him again.
He was obviously furious with her and confused about her relationship with Trevelan. Somehow, she had to help him understand the truth of it — Sebastian was all she’d ever wanted, and she didn’t intend to let him go without a fight.
Moving quietly, she changed into a pair of soft flannel sleepwear, turned off the light and slid into bed beside him. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the days of stress and worry had exhausted her, and she needed some rest nearly as much as he did.
As she snuggled up beside him, he turned and cradled her against him, instinctively adjusting his position to make her comfortable. As his breathing evened out again, she released a sigh of bone deep contentment. In his arms, she could almost believe that everything would be all right.
Hopefully, things would be clearer when she awoke.
* * *
“Is someone there?”
Miranda sat straight up in bed, hugging the covers to her chin. Her heart thundered in her chest as she peered around her tower bedchamber. She blinked against the bright glare of the fireplace, then frowned when she noticed the flames were freshly stoked, not burnt to embers as they should be at this time of night. Had she gotten up to add another log and somehow forgotten?
Ever since she had taken up residence in Hawkesmere’s haunted tower, she had often sensed she was not alone.
At first she had assumed ’twas the tower ghosts who plagued her, perhaps Sir Sebastian himself, but now she wondered if the intruder was far more earthly. How else to explain roaring fires in the middle of the night and extra blankets tucked around her during the cold fall evenings?
A very helpful ghost, she mused.
Or perhaps a very helpful man. A man on the run, who dared not show his face for fear of capture.
There.
Behind the bed hangings at the foot of the bed. A movement. A small disturbance of the air, as though someone shivered in the cold.
“Trevelan?” she whispered, afraid to speak the name aloud, afraid to hope, even though she could think of no other explanation.
The soft, surprised intake of breath sounded very loud in the quiet of the room. Perhaps she should be afraid, but instead excitement surged through her. Was he really here?
“Did you stoke the fire for me?” She kept her voice soft and unthreatening, as though trying to coax out a wild animal. “This is not the first time, is it, my friend?”
When he did not answer, she leaned forward, trying to see around the bed hangings. “It’s nice to sleep through the night, instead of waking up in the freezing dark. I appreciate your help more than you will ever know.”
Every muscle in her body urged her to throw back the covers and go to him—force him into the light—but she resisted. She wanted him to show himself to her. She wanted him to trust her to keep his secrets.
As the silence between them lengthened, she wondered if she were losing her mind. Perhaps she had imagined that small sound. Heaven knew she spent far too much time thinking about her former patient, wondering if he had survived his wounds and made it to safety. Though she hardly knew him, something about him had lingered in her heart, made her dream about what might have been if they had met under different circumstances.
With a disappointed sigh, she sank back into her pillows. “I wish you were here, Trevelan,” she whispered into the dark. “I am so tired of being alone.”
“Miranda.” Her name shivered in the air, a mere breath of sound, an exhalation she doubted he had meant to utter.
This confirmation of his existence, just when she had become certain he was a figment of her imagination, startled her. Gasping, she scrambled back against the headboard, her gaze pinned on the bed hangings.
“It’s all right,” he told her, his voice so raspy and faint she could barely hear him. “I won’t hurt you. I never meant for you to know I was here.”
She pressed a hand against her chest, trying to quiet her thundering heart. “Can you step out into the light?” she asked, her voice trembling. “It would help if I could see you.”
For a long moment he did not respond, but at last he rounded the end of the bed and stepped forward until he stood beside her hip, just a handful of feet away. The firelight limned his features, illuminating such stark, masculine beauty she caught her breath in amazement.
Even though he had been badly beaten when she first met him, she had known he was attractive. Still, she had never imagined his injuries hid such perfection. He had an aristocratic nose and brow, with high, chiseled cheekbones and the mouth of an angel. His blue eyes met hers warily and his blond hair fell in silky waves across his broad shoulders.
He seemed larger than she remembered. Had he actually grown more muscular, or did he merely appear that way because he loomed above her, instead of lying broken and battered on a pallet at her feet?
“Oh, Trevelan. Are you well? Why are you still here?” She scanned him anxiously, looking for injuries. Did he bear some wound she could not see? She could think of no other reason for him to be here, risking his life within Lord Simon’s fortified walls just to see her.
“I healed well, thanks to you.” A shudder wracked his lean frame, and he hugged his arms across his chest, obviously cold in his thin tunic and hose. “But I did not make it to the coast in time. They left without me.” Though he said the words without inflection, she heard his underlying pain. “I came back to look in on you, to assure myself Lord Simon had not punished you for helping me.”
“You were worried about me?” she asked softly, a rush of emotion bringing the sting of tears to her eyes.
“Every day.” He lifted a hand as though to touch her face, but then let it drop to his side as another shiver pulsed through him. “I never would have forgiven myself if you had come to harm because of me.”
Without giving more than a second’s thought to the danger, she lifted the edge of her blankets. “Come here,” she whispered. “Get beneath the covers with me. You are freezing.”
He gave the bed a longing glance, but shook his head and backed away. “Thank you. But I should go. I should never have come here, but I am so weak…. I have been so alone…. I just wanted to see your face, stand here for a few minutes and listen to you breathe…. And then, when you said you were lonely, too…”
His words made her heart clench with longing. She knew how he felt, because she felt it too. If he walked away from her now, she feared she would never see him again.
He froze, his beautiful blue gaze clashing with hers.
“Please,” she whispered, more gently. “Come get warm and speak to me for awhile. I have missed you so much.”
For a moment she thought he’d ignore her plea, but then he sat down on the edge of the bed and stared down at her, his blue eyes filled with emotion—hope, longing and something else she could not put a name to.