Kathryn Smith (4 page)

In fact, he didn’t look surprised to see them together at all. It was as though he had expected it. Why? And why should that fill Blythe with such a feeling of guilty unease?

His gaze focused solely on Carny. “Your wife is looking for you.”

Carny flushed, as only the fair and beautiful could, like a child caught playing somewhere he had been told not to.

“Yes, of course.” He bowed stiffly. “Pray excuse me.”

Blythe watched him go with a strange feeling. Was it regret? Pity? She couldn’t tell, but she did know that she wasn’t the least bit embarrassed to have been caught alone with him. In fact, she didn’t feel much at all where Carny was concerned—not as she thought she ought. She was more nervous at being alone with Devlin.

“That was very good of you,” she remarked, rising to her feet once she was certain Carny was out of earshot. “To come and rescue your friend like that.”

His dark gaze was unreadable even though his expression was completely unguarded. “It wasn’t for him.”

He came to rescue her, then. Part of Blythe rebelled at the thought. Did she look like the kind of woman who needed rescuing? She was strong and capable and completely independent of needing a man’s protection.

So why did her insides turn all warm and tingly at his simple confession? Why did she feel giddy and—damn it all—
feminine
when he looked at her like that? As if he were a knight on a charger and she the damsel in distress.

As she always wanted a man to look at her.

“Would you like me to escort you downstairs?” His tone was perfectly polite, completely unaware that he was treating her in a manner she was completely unaccustomed to.

Any man worth his salt would instinctively live up to her expectations. Wasn’t that what he said? Did he realize he had already met one?

Dear God, if she had any sense she’d run from him as fast as she could. This man would be a danger to her. He could make her wish for foolish things that she had no business wishing for. She knew this, and yet she did not run.

“I do not think that would be wise.” How calm she sounded, despite the fact that her heart was trying to climb into her throat. “People might talk.”

He nodded. “I will follow after you then.”

How far? Just to the drawing room or anywhere she wanted? Oh, it was fanciful, romantic thinking, she knew—the kind of thinking that had gotten her into trouble with Carny—but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking it. Another reason to run screaming.

She would have to stay away from Devlin Ryland. He was a dangerous man if he could have her feeling a degree of infatuation for him within a day of meeting him. If Blythe knew one thing about the male sex, it was that she had very poor judgment where they were concerned.

“I will see you in the drawing room then.” Smoothing her skirts, she moved toward the open doorway where he stood inside, like a sentry guarding the entrance to a castle. His gaze was fastened on her face, but Blythe felt it as keenly as if he had examined her from head to toe.

She stopped beside him and turned, raising her chin to look up at him. For a moment, she savored the sensation, smiling at the puzzlement in his eyes.

“Earlier today when we met in the stables, you knew I was a woman. How?”

The right side of his mouth lifted and curved. His dark eyes brightened with a sudden warmth that made Blythe shiver in response. “There could be no mistaking you for anything but.”

Oh.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Mr. Devlin.”

“Any time, Lady Blythe.”

As Blythe turned to run—
walk
—away, she knew in her heart that he meant it.

“Well, what do you think?”

At first Devlin had been dubious when Miles told him he had the perfect estate in mind for him to buy, but he’d met his friend early that morning, when the sun was still low in the sky and dew clung to the grass, and rode west to where this little piece of heaven was supposedly located.

Now he was glad for Miles’s tenacity and his taste in architecture. Sitting astride Flynn’s broad back, Devlin surveyed the property sprawled prettily before him. They’d stopped for one last look on the ride back to Brixleigh. He didn’t even have to look at the powerfully built, auburn-haired man beside him to know his friend’s smile was smug. “It’s perfect.”

And it was. Situated in the gentle slope of a shallow valley not quite five miles from Brixleigh, Rosewood Manor was like a pale jewel placed on rich green velvet. Built in the early years of the previous century, Rosewood was made of smooth, rose-colored stone. Its front was unadorned save for the large, ornately paned windows and double oak doors. It looked like a house that had been well cared for and well lived in—not by some aristocrat who stayed there only when he wanted to shoot animals or have large parties, but by a
family who had loved every nook and stone—including the multitudes of flowers, shrubberies, and trees that made up the garden behind it.

The house was large—certainly not anything like Brixleigh, but big enough that he would need either a capable housekeeper or a wife to make sure everything ran smoothly.

A wife. He had never really given much thought to marriage in the past, always assuming that he would marry one day but having no attributes in mind. But now that his mind turned to thoughts of impending matrimony, no one but the right woman would do.

A woman who would not judge him. A woman he could share his darkest secret with, and she would not turn away. A woman who could teach him how to love and give her love in return. Just once in his life he wanted to know what it was like to love and be loved—unconditionally and uncontrollably.

Was it too much for him to ask that he find such a perfect life? Yes, he knew it was. He didn’t deserve such happiness. He’d made sure of that the day he’d joined Wellington’s army. There was too much blood on his hands to deserve anything but the nightmares that plagued him and the guilt that refused to let him go.

“Is the inside sound?” No more thoughts of the past. It was time to think of the future.

“Very,” Miles replied. “There is little furniture but the interior is simple—none of that fussy Frog rubbish.”

Nodding, Devlin kept his gaze centered on his future home. “Who do I talk to?”

Miles chuckled. “I knew you would want it. Jamieson owns it.”

Now Devlin turned to face his friend. “Lord Dartmouth?”

“The same.” Miles’s teeth gleamed white against the tan of his skin. “Was it not his brother Thomas whose life you saved at Talavera?”

Devlin’s gaze skipped back to Rosewood, a sense of unease washing over him. Flynn shifted as he sensed it, and Devlin calmed himself as he soothed the horse. He didn’t like it when people made him sound like some kind of hero. Heroes saved. Heroes didn’t kill.

“You make it sound like I pulled him from the very jaws of death.”

“Didn’t you?”

Devlin shrugged one shoulder. “I pulled a ball from his leg. That is all.” He hadn’t been the first man to perform such surgery on a battlefield without medical training. He probably would not be the last.

“When there was no one else to do it and infection was already taking hold. If it hadn’t been for you, he would have died.”

Devlin didn’t bother to explain. How could he? Miles hadn’t been a career soldier. He’d been an officer who paid for the chance to fight the French for the sake of crown and country. He’d ridden a horse, always had a clean uniform, had always been held separate from the men below him despite his equal treatment of everyone he met. He had no conception of what it was to march into battle, to lie in cold, wet mud for hours waiting for the enemy to walk into your sights. Not that Miles hadn’t seen battle—he had, and he had been wounded as well. He’d been tended by Wellington’s own surgeon while other more seriously wounded men lay dying in the dirt, their blood flowing like wine from the holes in their bodies. Devlin didn’t hold him in lower esteem because of that—it was just the way things were.

Yes, Devlin had pulled a ball out of Jamieson’s brother. He had pulled lead out of many men. He’d stitched wounds with the thread pulled from dead men’s uniforms. He had also held many a callused hand as that soldier—old or young—slipped away to the supposed “better place” that was waiting
somewhere beyond that godforsaken Peninsula. He just did what needed to be done. If that was all it took to make a hero, well, there were better men than he who should bear the title. Men who had been forgotten now that Napoleon was long defeated.

“Does Dartmouth have a solicitor in town?” Devlin didn’t feel comfortable using the man’s surname as Miles had. Years in the Ninety-fifth had accomplished that. The Rifles had not been a division for the upper crust, no matter that both Miles and Carny had served with them on more than one occasion. Miles liked to think that he had been one of them, but he hadn’t been. The men had liked him but they had never accepted the marquess as one of their own. Miles would never know that, however, not from Devlin.

“Yes, there is a solicitor in charge of the sale,” Miles replied as they turned their horses back in the direction of Brixleigh. “Man by the name of Adams. I will send word to him today if you would like.”

“I would. If the inside is as perfect as the out, I want it.” As soon as he said the words he felt as though some kind of order had come into his life. He would have a home, a place to settle. A hole in his life would be filled.

Now if he could fill the ten or twenty thousand others that plagued him from time to time…

They filled the ride back to Brixleigh with talk of the area and Miles’s family’s connection to it. This of course eventually led to talk of Miles’s father and mother and finally, his sister.

What had she and Carny been discussing last night when he walked in on them? Their broken engagement? And just who had broken it anyway? He couldn’t imagine any sane man walking away from such a woman. But if it had been Blythe, why was there such bitterness in her expression and tone when she confronted Carny before dinner?

And why had Carny looked so guilty when Devlin discovered them in the music room? Was there something going on between him and Blythe? No, he couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe either one of them capable of such deceit. Especially Blythe.

Never had he felt such a strong and instant pull toward another person. It was physical, certainly. He would have to be dead not to appreciate Lady Blythe’s lush curves, but she was Miles’s sister, and despite her age, most likely an innocent—unless she was Carny’s mistress. Regardless, she was not the kind of woman who had to settle for the youngest son of a viscount. Nor was she the kind of woman who deserved a man as damaged as he. Miles would want better for her even if she didn’t.

“Your description of Lady Blythe was unjust, my friend,” Devlin remarked, breaking the brief silence as they neared the Brixleigh stables.

“Oh?” Miles seemed surprised. “In what respect?”

Stripping off his left glove, Devlin held it and the reins in his right hand as he raked his fingers through the wind-tangled thickness of his hair. “You and Carny both had me prepared for some kind of hoydenish tomboy.”

The heavier man didn’t seem to find this odd. “She is.”

“She’s also a beautiful, interesting woman.”

Miles raised his brows. “Beautiful and interesting, eh? Never thought of her quite that way before. She is quite a handful, I will give her that.”

A handful? More like two, or four. Maybe if Devlin were an octopus he could get enough handfuls to satisfy his curiosity.

He wanted to ask about Blythe and Carny, but it was none of his business, and he knew it. Besides, if they were having an affair, Miles would undoubtedly be the last to know.

After leaving their horses with Brixleigh’s capable grooms, Miles and Devlin made their way to the east lawn where a small group of women had gathered for a morning
archery match. Frankly, Devlin was surprised to see so many guests up and around, but country parties generally meant keeping country hours.

They also meant a lot of sneaking between rooms at night, as he’d learned when Lady Ashby had slipped into his the night before. Luckily he had crawled into bed in his smallclothes or she would have seen more of him than he wanted. Still, he probably should have been a bit more delicate with her, but she had awakened him just as the dream had taken hold, and his mood had been less than gentle.

Still, “Get the frig out” was hardly the kind of thing one said to a lady. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t even look at him this morning.

Another thing that didn’t surprise him was that Blythe was one of the ladies gathered on the grass. Even if her height hadn’t made her stand out among the others, her clothing would have.

“What the hell is she wearing?” Miles growled.

Grinning, Devlin watched as Blythe lined up her arrow with her target. “It looks like an old Rifleman jacket.”

The sight of the familiar green, so like the one he used to wear, should have filled Devlin with trepidation, should have brought forth memories he didn’t want to remember. Instead he felt a certain amount of pride for the brass buttons in need of a good polishing. He also appreciated the way Blythe filled out the coat. It had been tailored to fit her perfectly and accentuated the full globes of her breasts like a second skin.

Her brother was not impressed. “I’ll strangle her.”

“Relax, Miles.” Devlin laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with what she’s wearing, not for a sporting event among friends.”

Miles turned to stare at him as if he had announced that Napoleon was riding up the drive. “That was one of
my
coats she destroyed! And she is wearing trousers!”

Devlin shrugged. He couldn’t argue there. Blythe was in
deed wearing trousers. She looked damn fine in them too. Her legs were long and firm beneath the snug buckskin. A woman like Blythe would have strong legs—legs that would wrap around a man and not let him go until she’d had her fill of him.

Sweet Jesus, he was growing hard just thinking about it.

“The gown she wore to dinner last night was far more revealing than what she’s wearing now.”