I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (2 page)

Taliesin had not expected this. He should have. Just as he should have expected the grinding ache in his gut now. Her pull on him.

Golden, like a summer morning, with a quick glimmer in her eyes. That’s what he had remembered about her, the contrast between her fragile body and strong mind. As a boy, it had enthralled him. Often he’d goaded her only to see her ivory cheeks turn rosy and her golden green eyes flash. Always he’d sought to draw her gaze, to command her attention even if only to scold him for impertinence or arrogance or any of the other sins of which she believed him guilty. He would have done anything then to secure her notice. Anything.

Now he had merely walked through a door and she gave it to him. Voluntarily, thoroughly. She hadn’t ceased staring since he crossed the threshold. He hadn’t craved the touch of her gaze in years. But, God’s blood, he liked having it now.

A cool mist of displeasure slipped over her features, rain shrouding a spring garden. She turned her attention to the vicar and his new wife.

Satisfaction.
Already he’d gotten under her skin. She hadn’t changed in that manner. Nor in loveliness. As a girl Eleanor had never been a blatant beauty like Arabella nor naturally vibrant like Ravenna. But she had been graceful and quick-witted and so lovely that for years she had commanded his waking thoughts, and sleeping.

Not only his thoughts.

“Before God I declare you husband and wife,” the churchman pronounced to the pair before him. “Go and make fruit of your union.”

A muffled chuckle from Ravenna—the vicar taking his bride upon his arm but his gaze coming swiftly to the back of the chapel again—applause from everyone—organ pipes exploding into sound—Arabella smiling at him, diamonds around her neck.

And Eleanor’s averted profile, pure and perfect, with cheeks abloom like roses.

Chapter 2

The Challenge

“H
e hasn’t gone.”

Eleanor snapped her attention from the drawing room door. “Who hasn’t gone?”

“Taliesin,” Ravenna replied. “I only say it because you’ve been staring at that door for the past half hour.”

“I haven’t.”
She had
. “I’ve only been waiting for an opportunity to subtly elude our new stepbrother.” Her lips twitched. Much better than the nervous tremors she’d been biting back for hours. Taliesin
had
gone, disappearing after the ceremony to leave her in a state of agitation throughout luncheon and now in the drawing room where the modest gathering of provincials were disposed in clusters, taking tea. Gone as though he’d been a vision, like in medieval dream tales, an incubus sent to tempt her into harrowing emotions.

Rather, sent to temp her into sins. Anger. Lust.

She sank her cold palms into the skirts of the gown that Arabella had insisted she wear today. The Duchess of Lycombe’s eyes had gleamed with an intentional, determined light when she instructed her own superior maid to make up Eleanor’s hair with a silk net of tiny pearls. Then she had fastened a pearl choker about her neck and declared Eleanor’s toilette perfect.

“Oh, of course,” Ravenna said with a sideways grin. “Brother Frederick.”

Standing before the mirror above the hearth, Frederick adjusted his striped cravat between shirt points that rose to his ears. Then he pursed his lips and blew a kiss to his reflection.

Ravenna’s eyes danced. “Has he come to the point yet?”

“This morning he suggested we elope to Gretna Green.”

“How intrepid of him. Did you hear that he has royal blood? Agnes told me this morning. On his father’s side, generations back. Six centuries.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“But you must. Our stepbrother is only three hundred and fifty-seventh in line from the throne. Isn’t that splendid?” Ravenna’s grin widened.

Abruptly, the intentional gleam in Arabella’s eyes earlier—the gown, the pearls—all of it—made sense. Arabella still believed in the Gypsy fortune from their childhood: one of the three sisters must wed a prince if they were ever to learn the identities of their real mother and father. Despite her marriage to a duke, Arabella would not give up the hope that someday they would learn the truth. Now that Ravenna had wed, Eleanor was to be the sacrificial lamb upon that altar.

As there were no princes presently at Combe, she’d felt at ease on that account. But
this
?

“One drop of royal blood or one hundred, Frederick Coyne is not a prince. Bella has become desperate.” Eleanor paused. “Ravenna, does—”

“Does he intend to return? Yes. Shortly, I think.”

“Who?” But she knew.

“Tali, of course. He had a horse to see today in the county, but he told Arabella he would return. His business is spectacularly successful, you know.”

“I wasn’t going to ask about him.”

“Oh,” Ravenna said cheerfully. “My mistake. Our new stepmama is heading our way. I think I hear my husband calling.”

“What? Why—” But it was too late. Ravenna always moved like a wild creature, preternaturally still at times and quick as a hare at others. And she wasn’t overly fond of Agnes; all that kneeling and praying made her start to throw out spots. With a swirl of tumbling locks she darted away, abandoning Eleanor to greet their new mother with a sincere smile and pattering pulse.

He would return
. To apologize for abandoning their family without warning more than eleven years ago? In the smattering of letters he’d sent Papa since then, he had never apologized. Arabella and Ravenna had seen him occasionally over the years, but he had never returned to St. Petroc, neither to the Gypsy camp nor to the vicarage.

“Eleanor dearest,” the bride said. “Your cheeks are violently red. Are you unwell?”

Eleanor smiled. Falsely. “How could I be unwell when the occasion is so happy?” He’d been back in their family’s life mere hours and already he was inspiring her to lie again.

“Dear daughter,” Agnes said. “For today I delight in calling you daughter. I don’t expect you ever to call me mama, but if you should like to, I would be honored.”

Mama.
She hadn’t had a mama since the age of four, and remembered only vaguely the woman who had sent her daughters across an ocean, then disappeared.

“Thank you.”

“Eleanor, although this is a difficult subject I feel I must speak of it to you plainly. Today I have learned the reason that you are reluctant to respond to my son’s courtship.”

Guilt propelled her brows upward. “You have?”

“I understand that your sisters have not explained matters to you sufficiently, which is only proper of modest young ladies. And they are your juniors, of course, so it could not have been expected of them.” Agnes lowered her voice to an intimate whisper. “Thus it falls to me, with the most sincere and affectionate duty, to fill the gap in your feminine education.”

Feminine education?

This could not be good.

“When we are finished speaking of this, I assure you,” Agnes continued, “you will no longer be afraid of marriage. With the right man—a man of good character and immaculate morals—even the rigorous act imposed upon a woman with the sacred mantle of marriage can be rendered innocuous, even mildly pleasurable, if only a woman knows what to expect.”

Jaw slack, Eleanor stared. Perhaps her mouth even hung agape.

“Oh, dear.” Her stepmother’s lips crinkled. “Arabella said you might respond in this manner.”

“Arabella? My sister spoke to you of
this
?”

“She warned that you would not like me to speak to you of your greatest fear.” She took Eleanor’s hand. “You are innocent and frail, as is to be expected of a young woman who has passed so many years convalescing, and with a scholarly bachelor father too. But you needn’t fear marriage any longer. Once we have had a little tête-à-tête, you will be glad to take a worthy husband to wed, and—in the interests of honest concern I must be frank—to bed. The marital act mustn’t distress you. I will explain it so that your concerns over your inconstant health will no longer deter you from marrying. Nothing, dear Eleanor, must stand in the way of your future happiness.”

This could not be happening.

The
marriage act
? Her
inconstant health
? Her past would never leave her be. Even Agnes, who hadn’t been in St. Petroc thirteen years earlier, imagined her frail and fearful. None of them knew that she was precisely the opposite—not the helpless sleeping maiden waiting for a prince to wake her. Rather, she was the maiden dragon sleeping beneath the mountain, roused now and finally ready to spring into the sky spewing flame and roaring.

If she ever took an adventure, she would roar. And set fire to things, perhaps. That would be vastly entertaining.

She swallowed over the swell in her throat. “Agnes, I hardly know how to—”

“Thank me?” Her fingers tightened about Eleanor’s. “You needn’t. It is all to ensure my dear Frederick’s happiness. Can you not see how smitten he is with you?” She looked fondly toward her son.

He winked at himself in the mirror.

Eleanor caught a bubble of laughter with a cough. “I am honored by his admiration. But—”

“Ellie.” As though summoned by an angel—or perhaps the devil—Arabella appeared at her side, gorgeous in azure silk with tiny puff sleeves and an overskirt of white tissue. She looked every bit the duchess, gently rounded from recent childbirth, glowing, stunning. Her eyes passed over the heavy shawl wrapped around Eleanor’s shoulders, and one delicate line marred her forehead.

Agnes released Eleanor’s hand and gave her a private smile of sympathy. “We will finish this conversation later.”

When hell froze over
.

“I’m terribly sorry to drag my sister away, Agnes,” Arabella said, “but I should like her company in the library. I’ve something of interest to show her.”

A manual on the marriage act. Or a genealogy of the Coyne family going back six centuries. Eleanor didn’t protest. She needed privacy for what she must now say to her sister.

Agnes looked pointedly into Arabella’s eyes. “I am always happy to aid in the wishes of such beloved sisters.”

“Thank you, Stepmama. You are beyond generous.” With a glittering smile, Arabella took Eleanor’s arm and swept her from the room.

“What do you wish to show me?”

“That was an excuse. What on earth were you speaking with her about? You looked as peculiar as I’ve ever seen.”

It wasn’t to be wondered at. “I need a cup of tea.” And several hours of quiet.
To plan
. Maiden dragons shouldn’t leave the lair without a plan.

“Or a brandy, I daresay. Is she still threatening to marry you off to Frederick?”

“Rather, encouraging. She’s far too kind to threaten. I think she means well. But I don’t understand, Bella, did you speak to her about my . . . my . . . ?” Her cheeks went hot as a fireplace poker again. Some things she could not say aloud, even to her sisters. Some things she had only ever shared with one person.

He hadn’t deserved it
.

Arabella closed the library door. “Your what?”

“Oh . . . My mind is wandering today.” To incubi and maiden dragons and adventures that her sensible sister would never understand.

Arabella went to a table upon which a tea tray had been laid. “Agnes is a good-hearted soul. But she thinks excessively highly of her son. I suppose that’s natural, of course.” She carried her teacup to a tall window that overlooked the drive and peered out. “Perhaps if you leave the vicarage at once, it will not appear to be an insult when you refuse him. You must come live here. I would adore that, and Luc would too. I will send a maid and footman to fetch your belongings to Combe.”

To Combe? Where every month Arabella would produce another prince for her inspection?

A prince. . .

The idea came upon her suddenly. Clouds parting. The maiden dragon racing from darkness toward the light.

“Bella, I want to find our parents.”

Arabella pivoted in a swirl of azure. “You do?”

She did?
“Why not? I’ve been content to let you search for them. But now you have a baby and a husband, and this house and your household in London too. I have nothing to do and I need occupation. I may as well take up your quest.”
And have an adventure
.

“You know that the investigator Luc hired found no record of three sisters sailing from the West Indies for England twenty-three years ago.”

“Hundreds of ships probably visited those ports each year. Perhaps the records were lost during the war.” She moved to her favorite bookshelf, filled with tales of valiant knights and demonic villains. Tugging off her gloves, she passed her fingertips across the bindings, all of them stories of glorious adventures. She plucked one out. “But perhaps the answers we seek are not in the West Indies. They could be in Cornwall where the ship wrecked. Wreckage can take years to wash up after a ship founders.”

“I never thought you were interested in searching for our parents.”

“It seems I am now.”

Arabella was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps the man we hired simply didn’t know what to look for. You could be the key. You remember little of our parents, I know, but perhaps if you see clues that our investigator saw, they will mean something to you.”

“We can hope.” The tingle of excitement in her belly grew. The last time she’d felt it she’d been fifteen, recently recovered from her illness and learning how to ride a horse in secret from everyone—everyone except a Gypsy boy. His adventures traveling with his family’s caravan each summer had always seemed to her so wild and free and wonderful and frightening. Even as she’d clung to the comfort of the vicarage, she had envied Taliesin his travels. “It’s certainly worth a try.”

Arabella clapped her hands. “Ellie, I am beside myself. What do you need from me? Tell me your plan and I will do whatever you need to make it a reality.”

She hadn’t a plan. Yet. “Well, I have little experience of travel, of course. We must find a traveling companion for me. Someone with experience of the road.”

Her sister beamed. “An excellent idea. Luc’s and my acquaintance is extensive. It shouldn’t be difficult to find the ideal person for the task.”

“Here you are.” Ravenna entered the library in a froth of wrinkled skirts.

Her husband, Vitor Courtenay, followed, a pair of dogs at his elegant heels. At the tea table, Ravenna plucked up a powdered cake and popped it into her mouth. The dogs sat at her feet until she fed them cakes too. Another cake disappeared between her own lips. “Bella, these are positively delicious. I’m taking a plate of them to my bedchamber tonight for a bedtime snack.”

“Vitor,” Arabella said, tucking a cup of tea into Ravenna’s hand, “do you never feed my sister?”

His eyes smiled. “Her nourishment is the sun, the wind, and the rain, of course.”

“And him,” Ravenna said, depositing another cake upon her tongue. “As to the weather, thank goodness the snow has melted now and we can be on our way home tomorrow. It isn’t that I dislike your house, Bella,” she said, perching upon the arm of Vitor’s chair with teacup
sans
saucer. “It’s splendid. But I don’t think I can abide another day in the same residence with the besotted couple. They’re so . . .
staid
. Agnes is far too pious. Even for Vitor.” She offered her husband a sparkling grin.