I Adored a Lord (3 page)

She went to her knees. Four little black and white bodies tangled together in the deep shadows, two sleeping, one nodding, the last crawling over its siblings and whimpering. The bitch was nowhere to be seen—­perhaps out foraging for food, or perhaps they were weaned already and she was gone. They were old enough, nine or ten weeks probably.

From under a thatch of straw to the side, a black nose poked out. Its tiny nostrils sniffed the chill air.

Setting down her lamp on the bench, Ravenna crouched by the concealed pup, brushed aside the straw, and peered at the runt—­for the runt it clearly was, separated from its siblings and smaller by far. Just like Beast.

She scooped it up and her fingers threaded through its chilled fur. Without his mother and not strong enough to contend with his siblings, he would not last long in this cold. Yet in desperate straits he had dug himself a hole in the straw. Resourceful little fellow. She cuddled him to her breast. With boneless gracelessness he tumbled over her chest, his new claws like miniature razors, snatching at the edge of her cloak with a hungry mouth. She laughed and burrowed her nose against its brow.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I cannot help you. I didn't think to bring a biscuit.”

Holding the runt against her neck, she warmed it until her toes and the tip of her nose grew numb. She placed the puppy beside its sleeping siblings and tucked the straw around it, and its cries of complaint rose pitifully.

A heavy footfall sounded on the other side of the door. A man's tread. Then another. He paused out of sight beyond the opening she'd left.

Silence
.

She'd thought the stables empty. Now a man stood on the other side of the door without speaking. If he had come to see the pups, he would enter. If he had followed her inside with ill intent, he might be silent. It would not be the first time a man had assumed she was fair game for a tumble in the hay. But this time her protector did not stand by her side, growling and baring his sharp teeth. This time she was alone.

The pup whimpered more desperately it seemed. No other sound stirred the stillness, no breath, no movement. But the man remained. Every prickling hair on Ravenna's arms felt him.

She slammed the door outward. It jarred and sprang back. His body fell heavily to the floor and a short, deep moan sounded in the hush.

Then . . . nothing.

The pup whined.

Ravenna counted to thirty. Stepping forward, she pushed the door open.

In the dim light she barely made out the man's profile against the floor: cap fallen askew off dark hair that curled around his collar, longish nose, and a jaw shadowed by whisker growth. He wore plain clothing, a loose brown coat, dark breeches, and boots. His hands spread upon the floor were large. A scar ran across the top of his right hand from the V between his forefinger and middle finger into his sleeve, the memento of a sharp-­edged tool going astray. She'd seen plenty of scars like that on farmers and stable hands.

This man must be a stable hand—­a stable hand who should not have alarmed her. When he regained consciousness he would have a welt on his head the size of Devonshire.

His body blocked the door. To fetch help she would have to step over him. But her narrow skirts would not allow her to traverse him in one step. So much for attempting to dress like a lady to please Petti.

He did not move. He could not possibly be dead. But he remained so still. In the dimness it seemed he did not draw breaths. Ravenna's fingertips itched, habit overcoming fear. She should probe his skull. If the door had cracked it, she knew what must be done. But first she must examine him.

Tentatively she shifted a toe forward and nudged his shoulder.

He groaned. She nudged harder.

His hand gripped her ankle so swiftly her fingers wrenched from the door. Twisting to avoid the pups, she went down fast, her shoulder striking the floor buffered by the thick straw. But he did not release her. Struggling back, she scrabbled for the wall and a weapon. Her hand snagged a handle. She wrenched it forward and it slipped through her numb fingers. The pitchfork crashed down on his leg.

“Good God!” he howled. “Damn it!”

Instead of doubling over, he lurched forward and grabbed her knee, and his other hand cinched around her wrist. Then he was upon her, his weight atop her, his knees and hips and chest pinning her to the straw and his hand clamping over her mouth as a scream jolted from her throat. She thrashed. His ankles twisted around hers, holding her legs immobile. He gripped her arm, the other trapped beneath her.

“Be
still
,” he growled like an animal.

She went still.

“What are you doing, attacking an innocent man?” His tongue slurred. “Damn it, my head hurts. And my leg.”

Her heartbeats battered against his chest pressed to hers. His face was inches away, satiny hair falling over eyes that were dark sockets of outrage. The icy air between them did not reek of spirits. He was not foxed. The slur must be from the injury. The door had hit him hard.

“I will release your mouth,” he said, and squinted as though he were trying to focus.
Long lashes
. Long for a man. “But if you scream, you won't like the consequences. If you understand, blink once.”

She blinked. His hand slid away from her mouth. She gulped in air.

“I still can't breathe,” she rasped.

The pup mewled.

“Why are you here?” His gaze swept the neckline of her gown, then her hair. “Are you a maid?”

“I came outside—­needed air. You're crushing—­my lungs. Get—­off me or—­I'll scream and—­bear the consequences.”

“No scream will come without air to carry it.” He sounded less slurred now. And too rational. “Tell me who you are and I will release you.”

“Regina Slate. Daughter—­Duke of Marylebone—­guest. He'll have you—­strung up by your neck when—­he learns you've—­touched me.”

“Marylebone is a neighborhood, not a duke. And threatening a man with hanging in the uncertain future when he's got you in his power at present is idiocy.” Now she heard a round, broken tone in his words. He was a foreigner. But not French, she thought, and he spoke English perfectly. Also, he knew Marylebone was a neighborhood in London. Her poor luck. “And if your father is a duke,” he said, “I am the Emperor of China.”

“Pleasure—­” She gasped. “To make your acquaintance—your imperial majesty.”

His hand tightened about her wrist. “What is your name and why are you in this stable?”

“Ravenna—­Caulfield. Truly. You were right. I'm—­nobody.” With no one of her own to wrap her arms around at the end of the day and breathe in deeply, and no one to protect her from men who would throw themselves upon her because she was nobody. “Now get—­off me.”

“Caulfield.” His brow bent. The pressure on her chest relaxed slightly and she tried to fill her lungs. But his grip remained tight around her arm. “You are in Sir Beverley Clark's party?”

As stable hands went, this one seemed unusually well informed. “I work for him.” Not really now that she was a duchess's sister, of course. But how much could he know about Sir Beverley's household?

“What work do you do?” His eyes scanned her face with particular interest now, and an odd little eddy of awareness scampered through her. “Are you his mistress?”

Apparently he didn't know much about Sir Beverley after all. “I care for his pet dogs and exotic birds.”

Abruptly, his brow relaxed. A crease dented his scruffy cheek.

Ravenna's heart did a peculiar sideways leap.

“You care for his—­”

“Dogs and exotic birds. Twelve dogs. Two birds. And one house pig.” A strange agitation was rushing into her numb limbs. It must be terror. It could not be caused by the dent in his cheek above his hard jaw. He was a dangerous stranger attacking her. But attackers did not grin like they were curiously pleased. Did they?

A shimmer of red peeked from the fall of hair over his brow, the welt forming. A biscuit poultice would soothe that quick enough. Perhaps in the kitchen she could find milk and some—­

“Animals?” he said, his gaze trailing over her face again, the dent deepening.

“I care for them and doctor them. I do the same for everybody's animals in the county when they get sick, without compensation because I am not a man and nobody thinks they need to pay me except with a basket of fresh eggs or a cream or a cake of soap, which I usually take to mean they think a woman should smell better than I do. This struggling in straw soaked with puppy urine isn't helping that problem, by the way. So now
get off me
.”

But he wasn't going to release her. She saw the change in his eyes and felt it in his body the instant it happened. She hadn't much experience with men beyond the occasional brush of hands when she was holding on to one end of a lambing ewe and a farmer was hanging on to the other end. But she knew enough about rutting animals to recognize the signs of arousal in the male of the species, even her own.

The pupils of her attacker's eyes were wide in the darkness. Then his gaze dipped to her mouth. He might not have initially followed her into the stall with rapine intent. But it certainly seemed to be on his mind now.

“You smell good to me,” he said, his voice deeper than before, like a warm autumn night, the vowels especially round. Not French. Italian? Spanish? He must have come with one of the other guests—­one of the other guests who had wretched judgment when hiring stable hands.

“I—­”

“And,
por Deus
,” he said upon a catch in his throat, his eyes hard upon her mouth, “you are lovely.”

The rutting urge must have overcome him. The only male creature that had ever considered her lovely was Beast, and that was because she sometimes smelled like bacon.

She must distract him.

“I can help with that bruise on your brow,” she said, struggling against panic.

“Can you?” He seemed bemused. Jars to the head could scramble the brain.

“It's starting to swell. It will leave a painful wound that could fester. Let me up and I'll ask the housekeeper for—­”

His mouth came down upon hers without further warning. Not hard or violently or forcefully. But fully, with complete contact.

Ravenna pinned her lips together. Breathing through her nose, she smelled horses and straw and something else foreign and male and . . .
good
. Like whiskey without the bite. Or well-­loved leather. He released her wrist and with his big hand cupped her cheek.

She did not push him away.
She must
. But his scent, the heat of his skin, the sensation of his lips upon hers—­teasing, encouraging, urging—­paralyzed her. The pad of his thumb stroked gently along her throat. His touch was so warm. Intimate.
Tender
. Tingling pleasure mingled with the panic in her belly. She could kiss him back. She could discover what it was like to really kiss a man.

She couldn't
.

He had one thing in mind after kissing, and she wasn't prepared to oblige him.

She did what Beast would have done to an attacker.

“
Colhões!
” He jerked away and rolled off her and to his feet.

She scuttled back, skirts tangling in her boots as she jumped up, leaping to avoid puppies. The man's shadowed eyes swung to her, anger sparking in them in the dim light. Blood dripped between his fingers clamped over his mouth.

“I hope I bit it off,” she said, unwisely.

He dropped his hand and his lower lip was still intact, though bleeding down his chin. “Damn it, woman. I only kissed you.”

“While you had me trapped beneath you.”

“Yes, well, obviously that was a mistake.” He dabbed gingerly at the blood with the back of his sleeve. He was tall, his shoulders broad, the sinews in his neck pronounced. He did not sound like a stable hand, rather more like a gentleman, but those sinews were like a farmer's. This man knew physical labor and he had trapped her with little effort. He could have easily done anything to her he wished. He still could. The pitchfork lay close to his booted feet. He blocked the door. She was still trapped.

“Get out of my way,” she said, “or I'll kick you in the
colhões
even harder than I bit you.”

Without speech he stepped out of arm's range of the door, and she darted past him and ran across the forecourt. Inside, she locked her bedchamber door, wrapped a blanket around her, and sat before the dying embers of the fire, shaking a little. She had never imagined what her first kiss would be like. She had never imagined she would have a first kiss at all.

Now she knew.

 

Chapter 3

The Monk

F
lakes of cold crystal fluttered between the trees as Lord Vitor Courtenay tied his horse to a branch and stepped into the church built of gray stone at the mountain's peak. Closing the door behind him, he walked down the nave bare of adornment, his boot steps echoing in the vaulting. Upon the limestone steps to the chancel he went to his knees, pulled off his cap, and touched his fingertips to his brow, his breastbone, and each shoulder in turn.

In years past he had come to this mountaintop hermitage for food, shelter, and safety. On this occasion he needed none of those. The wealth he had earned during the war through labor for both England and Portugal now collected dust in his London bank, and the luxuries of Chateau Chevriot were presently at his command.

This morning he sought another sort of aid altogether.

The church smelled of incense and tallow wax and ancient, sacred aromas: the scents of his blood-­father's land. Fourteen years ago, after learning of his true parentage, Vitor had first traveled to that land, only to depart from it when the Portuguese royal family fled the threat of Napoleon all the way to Brazil. But Vitor had not crossed the Atlantic with the rest of the court. Instead, his father, Raynaldo, cousin to the Prince Regent, retreated into the mountains. From hiding he had sent his English son—­young and eager to prove himself—­into Spain, then France, to learn what could be learned to make Lisbon safe for the restoration of the queen's court. Vitor had not disappointed him.

He probed his sore lip with his tongue. Apparently not everyone respected a war hero.

A door creaked behind the wooden choir boxes. He bent his head and waited. Sandaled footsteps shuffled toward him and paused at his side. The hermit knelt on the cold steps, the clacking beads of his rosary muffled in the wool of his habit.

“
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
.” No whiff of wine accompanied the murmured words. Yet.

“Amen.”

“What sin have you committed for which you seek absolution,
mon fils
?” the priest said, then added, “This time.”

“Father . . .”

“Did you act in anger?” The hermit asked this according to ancient tradition, urging a confession from the sinner through questioning. During the two years Vitor had lived in a hilltop monastery in the Serra dal Estrela, he'd read everything in the library of the Benedictine brothers, including confessor manuals. This hermit now did not fix upon the sin of anger at whim. He knew Vitor's special interest in it.

“No,” he replied, his throat dry. “Not anger.”
Not this time
.

“Greed?”

“No.”

“Pride?”

“No.”

“Envy.”

“No.”

“It could not have been sloth.” The hermit's voice gentled. “You've never slept a full night in your life, young vagabond.”

“No.”
Get to the relevant sin
.

“Did you lie?”

“No.”

“Did you steal?”

A case could be made for it. “Not quite.”

“Did you covet your neighbor's goods?”

Momentarily, though “goods” didn't quite express it, really. “No.”

“Son—­”

“Father . . .” Vitor pressed his brow into his knuckles.

The priest paused for a moment that stretched in the chill air. “Did you commit murder again?”

“No.”

The Frenchman's breath of relief whispered across the chancel. He sat back on his heels and folded his arms within voluminous sleeves. “Then what did you do that brings you from the gathering at the house where your half brother needs you now?”

“I kissed a girl.”

Silence.

“Father?”

“Vitor, you are bound for the madhouse.”

“Or hell.” He raked his hand through his hair and turned to the priest. Patient tolerance lined the old Frenchman's face. Vitor shook his head. “I shouldn't have done it, Denis.”

“You might be taking those monastic vows too seriously,
mon fils
, especially since you left them behind six months ago.” He lifted shaggy brows. “Or so you told me then.”

After the war, the monastery had made an excellent retreat. But Vitor's fathers, the Marquess of Airedale and Prince Raynaldo of Portugal, complained. Where was the man loyal to both families, the man they had depended upon to do dangerous tasks, to loyally serve both England and Portugal at once? Where was the man hungering for adventure?

Bound to a chair, beaten and cut
.

The monastery had suited him. For a time. But once he had put away his anger he'd been eager to move on.

“It isn't about the vows.” He turned his face to the bare altar fashioned of granite hewn from this mountain. “She was not exactly a girl.”

A choking sound came from beside him. “Perhaps it's time we have a chat about that monastery after all.”

Vitor cut him a scowl. “Oh, good God, Denis. She was
female
.”

“Ah.
Bon
.” The old priest again sighed in relief. “Are you confessing the sin of fornication, then?”

“No.” Vitor turned to sit on the step, relieving the ache in his leg that she'd struck with the hardest pitchfork in Christendom. He rubbed a palm over his face. “I only kissed her.”

The hermit chuckled. “If she took money for only that, she should be the one confessing.” Denis reached into a fold of his habit and drew out a flask.

“She was not a
puta
. She was a lady.” Albeit wearing a gown fit for a servant and lurking in a stable at midnight. “I frightened her.” Anger and indignation and fear had all swum in her eyes. Beautiful black eyes. He hadn't been that close to a woman's face in years. She'd seemed an angel in the lamplight. A dark, alluring angel. “It was as if a demon drove me. She was there”—­beneath him, her curves cushioning him, her small body lush and entirely feminine, her eyes flashing—­“and I wanted to kiss her more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. I couldn't stop myself.”

He should have stopped himself even before he'd followed her into the stable. She'd walked across the forecourt in the dark like she was accustomed to walking about alone, her stride comfortable, pulling the fabric of her skirts around her behind and thighs and warming Vitor as he stood in the frigid shadows and watched her. No gently bred female walked like that. In the light of her lamp, her hair had shone black and shining and tumbling about her face, begging to be set entirely free from its haphazard confines. He'd followed her as much because he'd wanted to see more of her as because he was suspicious of her intentions.

His younger half brother Sebastiao enjoyed making assignations with serving girls in the stables. Laughingly he said it made him feel like the sportsman he was not. At this gathering, that amusing little pastime would not go over well with the prince's guests.

But Sebastiao had not been in the stable with the girl, only a handful of mongrel pups and a damnably hard pitchfork. Then when Vitor subdued her in the straw and she looked at his mouth . . .

He'd gone a little insane.

Two years of silent contemplation did not necessarily a willing monastic make.

Denis nodded. “The devil is fond of taking the female form.”

“No. I mistook the situation.” She hadn't been a servant hoping for a quick tup from a groom, but one of Sebastiao's potential brides, apparently. Odd choice: a former servant of a lesser English baronet. But Vitor's duty at Chevriot was not to question his blood-­father's intentions, only to make certain his half brother fulfilled them.

Denis glanced at his swollen lip. “Did you beg her pardon afterward?”

“No.” He would do so today. Then he would stay as far away from her as possible.

“There are plenty of girls in that castle,” the Frenchman said, knowing his thoughts. “Sebastiao will not be wanting for choices if you take an interest in one of them.”

No. He'd already once caused trouble coming between one of his brothers and a woman. He would not do so again. “I have no interest in her,” he mumbled.

“You are still under the seal of the confessional, Vitor.”

He snapped his head around. “How do you do that?”

“Recognize lies upon a man's tongue? It is my gift. As yours is to serve your family. Both of your families. Sebastiao must be corralled. After all the instances in which you have saved him from disaster, you know that better than anyone.”

“Forcing a wife upon him may calm him for a time, but it will not alter his character.” As falling into the hands of torturers had not altered his. Perhaps his elder brother Wesley had got all the steadiness of the Courtenay blood. Perhaps he, lacking a drop of that Courtenay blood, had got only his mother's inconstancy.

Vagabond, indeed.

“Sebastiao is unstable and prone to excess,” Denis said. “But this snow will hold him here until the deed can be done,” the hermit said. “And Prince Raynaldo knows you will not deny his wishes.”

He never had before. But this mission was beneath him.

“When this is through, Denis, I will return to England.”

“To do what,
mon fils
? Spend your gold on drink and game and loose women?”

“Why not? I've nothing else to do with it.” During the long, silent nights at the monastery, belly empty and hands raw, he had considered indulging in the life he'd been born into, the life he could well afford. But even then he knew that would not satisfy. Soon he would hear of an opportunity abroad, or smell the freshness of spring wind, and be off anew.

Absently he rubbed at the scar between his thumb and finger through his gloves. It ached.

“
Bon
.” The priest set the flask down on the step and folded his hands. “For the sin of lust you have confessed,
mon fils
,” he said in an easy tone, “you are contrite,
n'est-­ce pas
?”

Vitor closed his eyes and saw hers before him, sparkling like stars. “Yes.”

“For your penance I give you a novena to our Blessed Mother and the task of seeing your brother well matched to a woman who will bring him to heel.”

“Only that?” Vitor lifted a brow. “Father, you are too lenient.”

The priest drew a cross in the air above his brow. “
Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
.”

“Amen.”

“Now, go find an actual
puta
and work some of that fire out of your blood.” He took up the flask.

The path down the mountainside was dusted with snow that tumbled faster now through the canopy of spruce and pine. A horseman appeared as a shadow through the white curtain. Shirt points high, buttons gold, breeches pristine and riding crop affected, he struck a pose even on horseback.

“Up to your papish ways again, brother?” Wesley Courtenay, the Earl of Case, drawled. Snowflakes caught in his chestnut hair and shrouded the dark blue eyes that they both shared with their mother.

“Up to your lordly ways as always, brother?” They stopped close and clasped hands.

Wesley grinned. “It is good to see you again after so long, Vitor,” he uttered low, warmth now in his voice that could at times sound as cold as steel in winter. “But what on earth did you do to your lip?” He waved a hand. “Never mind. It mars those irritatingly good looks, so I am almost in charity with you.”

“My valet must have cut it while shaving me.”

“I daresay he might have if you had a valet,” his elder half brother replied. “Or perhaps you do now. It has been such an age since you were in England last, I barely know how you go along. I was thrilled to receive your invitation to this gathering,” he said conversationally, the snowfall muffling sounds beneath the treetops.

“Were you?”

“A whole castle full of damsels intent upon securing a husband?” Wesley mimicked surprise. “Why, of course. What reasonable man would not be thrilled with such a prospect?”

Vitor laughed. “I know the ladies are probably too innocent for your liking, Wes. But their fathers are all deep in the pockets. Late-­night play should be good.”

“Ah, deep play. Of course. Why did you invite me, Vitor?”

“I didn't. Father did and told you I had. I received his letter only the day before I departed Lisbon.”

Wesley drew up his mount.

Vitor continued, allowing Ashdod full rein. “I hear Mother is eager for grandchildren. Perhaps she hopes that, trapped in proximity with eligible maidens, you will find a bride.”

“Father wishes to force a reconciliation between us,” Wesley said behind him.

Vitor drew the gray to a halt and looked over his shoulder. “For what it's worth to you, I am glad Father did it. I am pleased to see you, Wes.”