That compromise meant that she had just agreed to spend more time with Orion, alone, traveling around the countryside. Catryn knew she also had to decide what to do about that desire he could so easily stir within her. Her choices were simple. She buried it deep and remained no more than a traveling companion or she set it free and became a daring widow who could take a lover for a while and walk away when the journey was done.
Catryn was surprised at how tempted she was to do the latter. Daring was not something she had ever thought herself to be. Orion and the attraction she knew without doubt was mutual made her that way. For once in her life she wanted to reach out and take what she wanted and not worry about consequences. The only thing that held her back was that she knew there was a good chance one of those consequences could be a broken heart.
The soft sound of someone approaching nearly made her sigh with irritation, but that changed when she caught the gently enticing scent of Orion. It was odd how she could scent him in the air like a dog scented its master. The man wore no strong perfumes and he was a very clean man as well. Yet he had, to her, a very distinct and attractive scent that drew her attention the moment he was anywhere near her.
“I still believe you should stay here, safe with Alwyn,” Orion said as he sat down on the bench next to Catryn.
“You lost that argument,” she said as she bit back a smile, for he sounded almost sulky.
“I know. If I was not having so much trouble finding this cursed man before we can do no more than run from him I would have fought harder. But there is that shield around him which hides him from my gift, and Penelope agrees that the man must have one. That leaves me with the need to have someone who knows him well, or at least better than I do, at my side to help decide where to look next.”
“You believe he is in hiding now that we have taken Alwyn back.”
“I sense by your tone that you do not,” he said as he studied her, thinking how well the moonlight suited her.
“No, I do not. It would make sense to stop now. We know what he did, and might think to bring charges against him. The correct thing for him to do now is to flee the country, let this all fade away.”
“That is certainly what I would do.”
“And I. But I would also have given up after I lost the first court case to gain guardianship over Alwyn. Such things are very costly and I would never want to throw good money after bad.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her up against his side, ignoring her frown. She did not tense or pull away and, silent though she was, he knew that was acceptance of his touch. A part of him was pleased that they would continue on together, while a larger part wanted her to stay at Radmoor, safe and out of Morris’s reach. Since that was not going to happen, he was beginning to think he might just reach out for what else he wanted. The women in his family would give him an ear-burning lecture if he tried to seduce someone like Catryn, but he was thinking it might be worth it.
“Money Morris does not have,” he said as he slyly rubbed his nose against her sweet-smelling hair.
“I did not believe he had it. All that I was able to learn about his finances implied that he was in debt, perhaps even the depth and kind of debt that will get you beaten severely if you do not pay it off in time. Then again, he may not have paid his solicitor yet, either.”
“Solicitors are usually very good at judging who will or will not pay their bills. He probably had to pay a fair amount before they took him on as a client. They would not be spending time unless he was paying. But that could be one reason he is so in debt.”
“Ah, of course. Our solicitor has been with the family for years and trusts my father to pay his debts. Even so, our purse was definitely being pinched. It is that doggedness he revealed with the court cases that makes me think he has not given up yet.”
“I agree. And what do you do if it becomes clear that he will never give up?”
She lifted her head to look at him. It was a question she had often asked herself, but she still had no answer. The best thing would be if Morris died, but she was appalled every time such a thought entered her mind. Nevertheless, if Morris promised to be a continuous threat to Alwyn, she suspected she would overcome her distaste of such a violent solution to the problems he presented.
“I hate to even say it, for it makes something within me curl up in horror, but if Morris will not cease and accept defeat, then he will probably have to be ended. That could mean prison, which would cause the whole lot of us to be a ripe piece of gossip for a while; but I fear the only true solution, since he is of the gentry and it is not easy to get one of them jailed, is for him to die.”
He brushed a kiss over her forehead. Her voice had dimmed to a whisper at the end and she looked distressed by that judgment. It was a rational one for the safety of her child, but a hard one. He realized he wanted Morris to pay simply for putting Catryn in the position where she had to consider such things.
“There is always a chance he will listen to reason once we find him and speak with him,” he said as he stroked her cheek.
She smiled faintly. “Morris is not one who responds well to reason, but yes, I will hope for that.”
Unable to resist, Orion lightly kissed her. The soft warmth of her lips, the way she leaned into him, quickly turned the kiss into a deeper one. He wanted her but tried to remember that she was not the sort of woman he usually dealt with. He needed to move slowly, to rein in his hunger until she was ready and willing to feed it.
When she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body even closer to his, he decided it would not hurt to let her have a taste of his need. He slid his hands up her sides until they rested at the very edge of the curves of her breasts. A soft sound of pleasure escaped her as he stroked those curves with his thumbs. Orion moved his kisses to her throat, savoring the way she tilted her head back to allow him better access to the silken skin there.
It was just as he slid his hands over the fullness of her breasts, felt the invitingly hard tips of them rub his palms, that a sound cut through the fog of his growing desire. Orion was pulling away from her even as she tensed and yanked away from him. He nearly cursed when Killer, the ugly dog Penelope and her boys insisted on keeping, came running up to them.
“That is a very odd-looking dog,” murmured Catryn, her voice low and husky with a faint tremor, as she scratched behind the dog’s ragged ears.
“Most do not recognize it as a dog,” said Orion, inwardly sighing, for the moment of passion was definitely ended. “He saved Penelope, in a way, by attacking the man who shot her. Yet another fool who felt he had a right to take an inheritance that was not his. The boys had already asked to keep him anyway. She finds it difficult to refuse them much but said she never would have been able to anyway, for she knew, as they did, that the dog had been thrown away.”
“As they had been,” she whispered.
“Exactly.”
A soft whistle came from the direction of the house and the dog raced toward it. Orion looked at Catryn, who was busy brushing dog hair off her skirts. Her skin was still a little flushed, but he suspected at least some of that came from embarrassment, a reaction to desire that marked her as the innocent he knew her to be.
“You need not be ashamed of what you feel when I kiss you,” he said as he brushed his fingers over her cheek.
“I am not ashamed,” she said firmly as she stood up and looked at him. “I do believe, however, that you ask for more than I may be able to give, even if I wished to do so, and that is something I need to think about.”
Orion cursed under his breath as he watched her return to the house. The last thing he wanted her to do was think too much about what flared between them. She had had an empty marriage, and if she thought on what could be shared between them too much, comparisons would be made and past wounds revived. That could easily end all chance he had of tasting the passion her kisses promised him.
Shaking his head, he decided he would seek his lonely bed. They needed to hunt down Morris and put an end to the threat he presented. That would be work enough to warrant a good night’s sleep. It appeared he would also need the strength to resist the temptation of a lush little redhead.
Catryn crawled into bed, turned onto her back, and stared up at the ceiling. Her body still carried the memory of his hands and her mouth the memory of his kiss. If that dog had not come crashing through the bushes, she suspected the lovemaking they had begun would have gone much further. Instead of being embarrassed by the idea that she might have given herself to Orion in his cousin’s garden, a little thrill of excitement went through her. The man was turning her into a wanton.
The question she had to answer was, did she want to be one, just for him, just for a little while? Her body had a growing need for him, a hunger it was aching to have fed. She could not allow that to make her decision for her, however. Actions had consequences. In a society that thrived on gossip and had a very long memory for such things, her actions could easily haunt Alwyn almost as consistently as his spirits. Catryn shivered at the thought of being an embarrassment to her son, a source of pain as he suffered the whispers about his mother.
A knock sounded at the door and she hurried to don her robe. She opened the door and was surprised to see Penelope. “Is something wrong?”
“No, but this came while you were out in the garden with Orion,” she said and held out a letter. “I meant to catch you before you went to your bed, but the babies distracted me. I hope it is not news that will upset you.”
“I hope so, too,” Catryn whispered and forced herself to smile at Penelope. “Sleep well and thank you.”
After shutting the door, Catryn went back to the bed, turned up the lamp, and stared at the letter from her father. She found that she did not wish to read it, which she knew was foolish. Yet, she suspected that he was about to confess that he had hidden some truth about their family and she knew that would hurt.
“You are a grown woman,” she scolded herself, then broke the seal on the letter. “Act like one.”
She read her father’s words in growing disbelief. There was indeed a connection to the Wherlockes, although hers was actually with the other half of the family, the Vaughns. Her great-great-grandfather had married a Vaughn woman who was a gifted healer. One night the mob had come for her, claiming she was responsible for all manner of horrible, impossible crimes. There had been no way for him to save her, so he had done as she had begged him to and saved their children. After that, all mention of the Vaughn name had been stricken from the family records; only the heir in each successive generation was told the truth.
Catryn carefully put the letter away in her bag, shed her robe, turned down the lamp, and climbed back into bed. She was not sure how she felt. Her father had explained that he had never even told her mother, a woman he had truly loved, especially once he saw how she acted when her child showed a hint of a gift that he knew had come from the Vaughn side of the family. His reasons made sense to her, but there was still a part of her that was hurt. If he had told her she might not have spent her life being afraid that she was somehow marred or that her child was.
“At least I have an explanation now,” she told herself and then thought of the large family of Wherlockes and Vaughns. “I also appear to have more kin to help me and Alwyn than anyone could ever hope for.”
“Even better,” she murmured as she closed her eyes and fought to clear her mind so that she could sleep, “the relation to Orion is too distant to be of any concern. So, if I decide that I do wish to become a wanton widow, at least I will not be doing so with my cousin.” For reasons she did not care to examine, the thought comforted her enough to allow her to fall asleep.
Chapter Eleven
Catryn read her father’s letter for the fifth time as she sat at a table and waited for Orion to finish speaking with the innkeeper. She was delighted that her father had suffered no lasting injury from the attack, was simply sore and bruised, and she was touched by how eager he was for her and Alwyn to come home. Despite that, she was still furious that he had kept secrets about their family. That anger had been there when she had awakened the morning after getting the letter, two long days ago, and she had not been able to shake free of it. Yet again, she had to take several slow, deep breaths before that anger faded.
It was foolish to feel so betrayed. Her father was an honest man, a good man, and he loved her. There had been a very good reason why he had said nothing about that distant familial connection to the Wherlockes, not even when she had shown signs of having a gift and then when Alwyn had. The thing that nagged at her was that that reason had died with her mother, the person who had demanded such strict secrecy about her child’s gift, before Catryn had gotten married and had a child with a gift.
“Are you still fretting over what your father wrote?” asked Orion as he sat down across the table from her.
She waited to respond to his query until a serving girl had set the light meal of bread, cheese, and cold meat on the table. It was difficult to ignore the way the buxom young woman flirted so brazenly with Orion as she poured them each a tankard of cider. Catryn was very close to giving in to the urge to kick the woman when a bellow from the innkeeper had the woman hurrying away.
Jealousy, she mused. That was jealousy that had burned in her heart when the woman flirted with Orion. It was something she had never experienced before, not even when her husband had spent so many nights away from home and her bed that she had been certain he had a mistress. It had stung her pride but little else. It was then that she realized that she no longer loved Henry and now wondered if she ever had.
A part of her was troubled by her jealousy. It indicated that she was feeling far more than a liking for Orion and a natural womanly attraction for a strong, handsome man. Sir Orion Wherlocke was not a man a woman should give her heart to, and not just because he had three illegitimate sons who were proof of his rakish ways. Catryn needed no special gift to know that the man enjoyed women, a lot of women. She did not want to be just one of many. If she did give in to her lusts and became his lover, she wanted to be sure she did so with that understanding firmly in her mind and heart.
Another part of her, however, was utterly fascinated by the angry surge of possessiveness that had gripped her when that serving maid had touched Orion, displaying her ample bosom in a way that had been one breath away from being indecent. It was not a soft, ladylike feeling. Not genteel at all. It had been rough, fierce, and raw. The man roused strong emotion within her, good and bad. There was a hunger inside of her to reach out for all of it and revel in it, for it was something that had been sadly lacking in her life.
“Did you learn anything from the innkeeper?” she asked in a desperate attempt to quiet her thoughts, not at all eager to discuss what was in her father’s letter, even though she had shown it to Orion.
“Just that Morris passed this way.” He began to slice the cheese. “I have never had such difficulty hunting someone. Never.”
His frustration was so clear to hear in his voice that she felt compelled to try and soothe it. “Perhaps it truly is just because Morris is not actually planning out what he is doing.” She took one of the pieces of cheese and nibbled on it as she gathered her thoughts. “He just does it. The man might begin with a plan of some sort, but he rarely sticks to it. It was something Henry often decried about his brother, now that I recall. As I told you, I was surprised by how doggedly Morris worked to try and get the guardianship rights over Alwyn. It was very unlike him.”
“That may well be the problem. Everyone makes some sort of plan when they want to do something, legal or not, and most stay with it in some form or another. I can usually see it as if it had been drawn out for me. I can usually even see how the plan might change, and why. It is not so clear with Morris. It is as if I see what he should be doing, because I know what he wants, but there are”—he frowned as he struggled to think of some way to explain his difficulty to her—“no straight lines.”
“That makes sense, for I do not believe Morris thinks in that precise a way. I often thought he was like a small child, his thoughts and his desires quickly flitting from one thing to another. That is why his battle to gain control of Alwyn and all that is his was quite a surprise, but he may have actually hired a very clever solicitor and had the wit to leave the business of it all to that man. When Morris wants something, he wants it immediately, and if he cannot get it, he will soon become bored and turn his eyes on something else. This, however—what he is doing now—is madness.”
“You think the man is insane?”
“No, not insane, but not quite sane either. It is as if he can only plan one step at a time. If the man ever thought beyond getting ahold of Alwyn, then getting hold of me, I would be most surprised. Anyone taking the next step after that, even if just in their mind, would quickly begin to see all the problems that could arise. Maybe he simply thought all would go as he wished once he kidnapped us.”
Orion leaned back in his chair, drank a little of his cider as he thought on her words, and then nodded. “There are a lot of problems he has not considered, and most who would devise such a plot would consider the ending of it, the consequences.”
“I should have seen it.”
“That Morris may decide to kill the son of his only brother just to gain a title? Or, as my bloodthirsty son thought possible, kill the entire direct line to your father’s baronetcy, save for you, so that he could gain even more by breeding a son with you?”
“I just cannot believe he would go that far.” She could tell by the look on his face that he knew she was trying very hard to convince herself of that, that the fear of such a possibility was still lurking in her mind and heart. “I knew he believed the title should have been his. He even believed it would be, as if he truly believed his brother would never breed an heir. I often got the feeling that he knew something I did not. Morris was enraged when I got with child. He tried to hide his fury, but I saw it.”
“Did he try to hurt you?”
“No, although he did make me uneasy and I did my best never to be alone with him or alone when he was near at hand. Then Alwyn was born, and I still felt no sense of imminent threat from Morris. No foreboding. And, considering what has occurred, that is a bit odd, is it not? I know I said it was probably because Alwyn was not actually in any true danger, yet I keep thinking that I should have felt something. He hurt my father and stole my baby. There should have been something, some alarm sounded in my mind, if only a sudden urge to get right back home, but there was not even that.”
“Just as I see no clear pattern, no map I can easily follow. You have no warning and I see no plan. For both of our gifts to falter is very unusual. And the same man was at the heart of both failings. I become more certain that Morris has a shield.”
“A shield? You mentioned that before but I am not certain I understand what you mean by that.”
“There are some people who cannot be read, who are immune to nearly all of my family’s gifts, even the strongest ones.” Orion shook his head, disgusted with himself for taking so long to consider such a possibility. “It is not just Morris’s scattered thoughts and errant behavior that are making this difficult for me. There is something about the man that simply stops me from seeing his plan, knowing his next move. The same thing, I would wager, that stopped you from seeing the danger he presented even when he attacked your father and took Alwyn. Others in my family have met such people, but Morris is the first for me.”
“He has some wall around him that blocks you? And me?”
“In some ways, yes. For some of us, that is actually a blessing.”
There was a shadow in his eyes, the blue darkening with worry. Catryn knew what troubled him now. He was thinking of Giles. Although she did not fully understand all the talk about gifts, how they came to be, or even how they worked, she was able to clearly see what the future might hold for Giles. The boy knew what emotion rested in a person’s heart. If that particular gift strengthened as Giles aged, the child could easily be tormented by all he could see and feel. There were some very dark emotions out in the world and some very black hearts no one would willingly look into.
She reached out and Orion smiled faintly as he clasped her hand in his. He idly brushed his thumb over her knuckles and Catryn wondered how such a simple touch could stir her blood so. It was both a delight and a curse. When the serving girl interrupted them again, the woman’s intentions were still clear to see. Catryn watched as the woman rubbed her breasts against Orion’s arm as she refilled his tankard and then had to be reminded that there was another guest at the table who might wish more to drink.
Before Catryn could embarrass herself by saying the sharp words already burning on her tongue, Orion spoke quietly to the woman. The serving woman blushed but nodded. When she turned to leave, however, she gave Catryn a look of such anger that she was tempted to quickly hide the knives on the table.
“What did you say to her?” she asked Orion when the woman was gone.
“That she should take more careful notice when a man is not alone nor wishes to be,” he replied, and smiled at her even as he filled his plate with food.
“Oh. Well, if this is how she behaves with the men who come here, I wonder why the innkeeper allows her to continue to work here.” She frowned. “Did I just sound as pious as I think I did?”
Orion laughed. “It was a little pious sounding. You have not traveled much, have you?”
“I have been places with my father and a few times with my husband. I have stayed at an inn or two before this adventure.”
She frowned as she thought back over those times. Women had flirted with Henry and even with her father, but she had paid little heed. Her father had been oblivious, at least until he became a widower, and what Henry did had quickly become of little importance to her. Now, however, she could recall a few exchanged smiles and looks, after which there would be no visit in the night. He would not even bed down in the room to sleep. And suddenly Catryn knew exactly what had been happening right beneath her nose.
“That bastard,” she hissed. She stabbed a piece of cheese and shoved it into her mouth.
“Henry has returned, has he?”
She sighed and then laughed briefly as she saw his grin. “So I am naïve. There was no need of him taking advantage of that. I knew quite soon after we married that he did not hold to his vows, but to break them while I was traveling with him seems an even more egregious sin. Why, ’tis rude.”
The scowl she tried to give him when he laughed was weak, and she had to smile. It was foolish to get angry now, when the man had been dead for almost two years and their marriage had been dead for far longer than that. It stung her pride that he would sneak away with a serving maid while she was in the same inn, but she suspected he had just been behaving as he always had, never giving her a passing thought. She could not continue to let that anger her. Henry was gone and she needed to be completely free of him. Now that she understood that some of the maids at the inns served up far more than meals, at least her father had behaved himself. The moment she thought that, she knew differently, could recall times during a trip to or from London when he had undoubtedly answered an invitation from one of the maids. She was horrified.
“Oh, dear heaven, my father, too?” When Orion burst out laughing, she had no trouble managing a scowl for him this time. “This is not funny.”
“Not to you, I can see that.” Still struggling with the urge to laugh, he reached across the table and took her hand in his. “Did he, let us say, indulge while your mother was alive?”
“Of course not.” She thought on that for a moment and then nodded, certain she had a right to that conviction. “He loved my mother.”
“Then why so shocked? The man did not die with her.”
“But he is not a young man.”
“My father was still chasing women when he was three score and ten. Last one was one too many and his heart gave out. So long as a man is healthy enough and all his parts still work, he will be wanting a woman.” He shrugged. “’Tis just the way of it. Probably has something to do with the need to reproduce, go forth and multiply and all that.”
“Oh.” She thought on how lonely her father must have been after her mother was gone, and sighed. “I believe I do not wish to think on it any more, at least as concerns Papa.”
“That is what most children prefer to do, no matter how old they get.” Having eaten all he cared to, he sat back and drank his wine. “I need to go out now. I want to do a little hunting before all the light fades.”
“But if Morris has this shield you mentioned, how can you do that?”
“The way all other men do. I rely on my gift, true enough, but I learned all the other ways to hunt a man down. Although I was arrogant enough to believe I would never have to use them, I learned them all the same. The man I work for in the government insisted.”
“He knows about your particular skill?”
“There are ones in the government who know a lot about the Wherlockes and the Vaughns and have no qualms about calling upon our particular gifts when they need them. I begin to think the man also knew that there are times when our gifts might fail us. So, I learned. I will put those skills to use now.”
“And if you find Morris?”
“We will keep close on his trail and I will send for some of my kin. Your kin, too, now.”
“But very distant.”