“You love him very much, don’t you?”
Alex toyed with her ruff. It was a question that did not require an answer.
“As much as you once loved me?”
Alex blinked rapidly. Why was she always dissolving into tears at every opportunity? “I love you as much as ever, and you know it, you scoundrel,” she said bitterly. “Do you say provocative things like that just to torture me?”
Burke didn’t answer for a long while, and then he observed, “We’ve come to a pretty pass, haven’t we?”
Alex stared past him at the pale green, budding trees. They certainly had.
“Do you wish you’d never met me?” he asked, twisting a blade of grass between his fingers.
Alex looked at him, his blue eyes, the long lashes, the wild hair she loved to caress, even now curling over his brow in front and into the neck of his tunic in back.
“How could I wish that?” she said softly. “I have memories I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.”
“And Michael.”
“Yes, and Michael.”
“But not me.”
Alex wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Let’s not do this, Kevin, we’ll both be bleeding all over this grass.”
It was several seconds before she looked at him, and she was startled to see that he was smiling.
“What?” she said.
“You’re talking like an Irishman.”
She finally smiled, too. “I always knew you were a bad influence, Burke.”
When he stood and offered her his hand she took it, and they remained holding hands for an instant. Then he lifted her onto her horse and the moment passed.
They stopped once more, to eat the meal Mrs. Curry had packed, and then at dusk they rode up to the inn Alex had mentioned earlier. It was really a tavern with rooms to let, like the Boar’s Head in Southampton. It was obvious that a roistering crowd was already well into a roaring good time inside the bar.
“Are you certain about this place?” Burke asked, surveying the establishment with a practiced eye.
“Well, we could ride on to Coldstream House, the Ashley estate, and spend the night with Lady Ashley, but it’s another hour on the road. I’m tired, the horse is tired, and it’s not safe to be on the highway after dark.”
“This trip could have been better planned.”
“Actually, there are several houses along the way where we could have stayed, but they all belong to Lord Selby’s friends,” Alex confessed. “I don’t feel comfortable with them. They always ask . . . embarrassing questions.”
“I see.” Burke slipped off his horse, lifting Alex to the ground and then taking their mounts around back to the lean-to that served as a stable. When he returned he said, “Let me get you settled inside and then I’ll see to the horses.”
They went through the door together and paused as the din from the tavern swirled around them. Burke waylaid the barkeep and said loudly, “We need two rooms to pass the night, as far away from this rabble as possible.”
“One room left,” the landlord said gruffly. “A shilling for the room, tuppence on top for a meal along with it.”
“We need two rooms. This is Lady Selby of Hampden Manor—”
“I don’t care if she’s Queen Bess herself,” the man said. “One room at the top back, take it or leave it.”
“Look, you,” Burke began, but Alex laid her hand on his arm.
“It’s all right, take the room,” she said. “I’m too weary to argue, we’ll make do.”
“And we will need something to eat,” Burke said.
“I’ll send the barmaid up with bread and ale.”
“Is that all you have?” Burke asked as he handed the man the coins for payment.
“Might be some sausage and cheese, unless the cheese has gone off,” the barman replied, already pushing his way back through the crowd.
“So this is civilized England,” Burke said as they waited at the foot of a crooked staircase.
“I’ve seen it more civilized than this,” Alex replied.
Presently the barmaid appeared, carrying a battered tray and bearing a candle. She looked at Alex’s fine clothes and Burke’s stableyard attire and raised her brows.
She led the way to the second floor, which featured a beamed ceiling so low that Burke banged his head as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Mind yer ‘ead, laddie,” the woman said, too late.
The room was about the size of a pin box, but it had a reasonably clean bed with a feather ticking mattress, and there was a welcome fire going in the grate. Though the day had been warm, the spring evening had turned chilly.
“‘Ere ye go,” the woman said, setting the tray on the battered dresser. “Come down if ye need aught else.” The door slammed behind her.
Alex and Burke were left staring at each other.
“Go and take care of the horses. I’ll be fine here,” Alex said, sitting on the bed.
Burke hesitated as the noise from the drinkers below came up through the floor. “Don’t go out of this room,” he cautioned, as he left.
He returned ten minutes later. “All fed and set for the night,” he said, looking around him again. On second look, the floor was dusty and the single window grimed with chimney soot. A chamber pot covered with a graying napkin stood in a corner.
“Not exactly Hampden Manor, is it,” he said, sitting on the one wooden chair since he could not possibly stand. With his legs stretched before him, his feet touched the bedstead.
“Oh, we can bear it for a night. We’ve borne worse back in Ireland, if you recall.” Alex settled on the bed.
“Some would say that was better,” he said softly.
“I would.”
Burke reached for the tray and poured two tankards of the ale. He leaned over to hand one to Alex and then took a gulp of his. “Not bad,” he said, smacking his lips.
Alex took a sip and made a face.
“Ah, I was forgetting. Only the finest Madeira for you these days.”
“What is there to eat?” Alex asked, ignoring his comment.
“A lump of cheese, hard at the edges, a loaf of wheat bread, and the promised sausage. Dry as dirt, it is. Oh, and an apple. He didn’t mention that.”
“We shouldn’t have eaten everything Mrs. Curry gave us.”
“But then we never do what we should, do we, Alex?” Burke removed a knife from his belt, sliced all the portions in half, and handed Alex her share.
“Apple’s fresh,” she said, biting into it.
“Our landlord probably stole it from the orchard we saw down the road,” Burke said, deftly carving the core out of the fruit.
“Do you remember that knife you had at the camp near Inverary?” Alex asked, watching him.
“Indeed I do. I wish I had it now.”
“You were always brandishing it at me. You had me quite terrified,” she said.
“That was the idea, my lady. You were a saucy piece of baggage to handle.”
“What happened to the knife?”
“Lost it at sea when my boat was swamped in a storm. I was lucky to get out of that with my skin intact, so I counted myself a winner even so.”
“You almost died then, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I can swim—everybody who grows up on an island can swim right enough. But if a ship hadn’t been passing, I would have gone under, as I was halfway through the passage and no land in sight.”
“You’ve gone through quite a lot for me, haven’t you?” she said, echoing Mary Howard’s words.
“Don’t fret yourself about that. I did what I pleased, most times do.”
“Not always. You’re not doing what you want with me now.”
“Well, there I need your help, and you’re not giving any.”
“I can’t,” she said, and put down her fruit, suddenly losing her appetite.
“You’ll feel better after some sleep,” Burke said, watching her face. “The floor will do for me. And rest easy, you’ll have no company that you’re not wanting.”
“I know that,” Alex said. She got up and pulled the coverlet off the bed, setting it on the floor for him. He stood and unfastened his jerkin, doffing it and untying the neck of the cotton shirt beneath it until it lay open on his chest and then yanking the garment over his head. Alex looked away.
“You can take off your gown if you want, for comfort,” he said. “I’ve seen you in less.”
Alex stood up and turned for him to unhook her bodice and help her out of her gown with its heavy underskirt. She removed the ruff and waist bolster and stepped out of the farthingale.
“How can you court women bear to wear all this underneath your clothes?” he asked, shaking his head.
“I’ve often wondered,” Alex said. In recent years the rage for Spanish fashions had caused the skirts to become wider and fuller, until movement was severely restricted. There were many times she longed to be wearing breeches again. She draped her things across the foot of the bed and slipped under the sheet in her chemise.
“I wanted to dress boyishly and ride astride for this trip but many of the people in this area know Lord Selby and I feared it would not look seemly.”
Burke lay down on the floor and propped his chin in his hand. “You have changed, Alex,” he said, looking up at her. “You now have more rules for yourself than a cloistered nun.”
“I feel my responsibility to Lord Selby very keenly.”
“So you’ve said.”
“It must dictate my behavior.”
“That much,” he said in a tired voice, “I have understood.”
A long silence fell, and Alex thought he was asleep until he murmured, “Micheali.”
“What?” Alex said.
“That’s how you say his name in Gaelic.”
“Whose name?”
“Our son’s.”
“Oh.”
After that he said no more, and Alex, worn out from the ride and the stress of watching her every move with Burke, quickly fell asleep. But her mind could not dismiss him, and she drifted into a restless dream that put her back at Inverary Castle, hurrying down the staircase to the dungeon that imprisoned her lover. She smelled the dampness, felt the lichen on the walls, and finally saw Burke, abused and bleeding, chained in his cell. She had to get him out of there, had to help him, but she was powerless against her uncle....
Burke was awakened by the noises Alex was making, helpless whimpering that drew him to her side. She was twitching and moaning, her hands crumpling the sheet that covered her. When he touched her shoulder, she gasped and pulled away from him.
“Alex, wake up, it’s me, it’s Burke. Alex, you’re dreaming.”
She opened her eyes and saw him, and in the moment of relief that he was all right, not a prisoner but with her and uninjured, she threw her arms around his neck.
“Easy now,” he murmured. “Easy, it was just a dream, no more.”
“I thought you were back in the dungeon at Inverary,” she whispered, clutching him.
“Not at all, not at all. I’m free as the air, as you can tell for yourself.”
“I saw the whip marks, and the bruises, how they had mistreated you,” she mumbled against his shoulder, still in the grip of the nightmare.
He held her off to look at her. “When? When did you see that?”
She was trapped but there was really no good reason to lie about it now.
“I saw you once, when you were being held in the dungeon. I bribed a guard to bring me down to you, but when I saw how badly you’d been beaten, I knew you would not want me there, so I left before you were aware of my presence.”
“Harker,” Burke muttered, pulling her back into his arms.
“Yes, that was the guard’s name.”
“He told me where you were in England, asked me to give you his regards.”
“He helped me when I most needed a friend.”
“I never knew you saw me in such a bad way. I’m that sorry, Alex, I would have spared you the sight.”
“That’s why I left Ireland when I did. I couldn’t risk your being taken and tortured like that again.”
“Oh, darling,” he said, drawing her closer, his lips moving in her hair.
“Tha gaol agam ort.”
“What does that mean?”
“I love you.”
“It sounds better in Gaelic.”
He turned his head, and almost against her will, Alex moved so that her mouth met his.
He kissed her tenderly at first, but it wasn’t long before the embrace escalated and Alex was lying in his arms, nothing between them but the thin material of her chemise. He trailed his lips down her neck and inside the gown, seeking her breasts. Alex’s head fell back, and he loosened the drawstrings of her gown with his free hand, pulling it off her shoulders. She gasped as the loose material fell to her waist and his mouth closed over her nipple, sucking gently as he tasted the milk that fed his son. She dug her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders and sighed.
“Please,” he said hoarsely, finding the valley between her breasts with his tongue.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Burke sat up and lifted her back on the bed, pulling the undergarment off her body and lying next to her. Alex watched him in a daze, submitting blissfully as he began to caress her again. His hands on her body were like a feast after the famine of the last year. She hooked an arm around his neck and drew him on top of her, wrapping her legs around his hips as his weight pressed her back into the bed.