Authors: Cynthia Bailey Pratt
“Come back,” he pleaded, like a lost thing. His eyes opened. His gaze rolled aimlessly past her face, past the window. “Where are they? They’ve all ridden away.”
“Who has?” Rietta wondered aloud, her voice as soft as the wind brushing its fingers over the window.
“Fox. Allenby. Ribera. They’ve all ridden away. They should have waited for me.” He shivered and crossed his arms, drawing into himself. Rietta swept up the coverlet and put it over him. She wasn’t certain if he was awake or answering her out of some dream. If so, it might prove dangerous to wake him while he was so deeply enmeshed in the toils of a nightmare.
“Where have they gone?” Rietta asked, still bending low.
“Cashman?” he said. “Tompkins?”
He sat up suddenly. Rietta felt back, clutching her shawl to her breast. Though the room was flooded with light, he didn’t notice her. He stared toward the exposed windows, pushing the fingers of one hand through his tousled hair.
She heard him draw a great deep breath, on and on as though he were coming up from the bottom of a river and needed the air to live. Then he sighed and rubbed his face. “I—I’m home. Thank God.”
Nick fell back, his arms thrown wide. He no longer looked as if he were tied to a rack. His pose bespoke the luxury of waking from a dream into the comfort of a bed that moments ago had been the scene of mental horror.
The moment she moved, even though she felt sure she was silent, he rolled on his side and looked at her. “Your bed isn’t comfortable?” he asked. “Or perhaps you’re hungry?”
“No. I’m not.”
‘Too bad. I’m as empty as a gallon jug after a wake. If I had an accomplice in crime, I’d go poaching in the kitchen.”
Rietta considered questioning him about his nightmare, but his sharp, bright tone warned her off. It would have been easier to deal with him had he demanded angrily to know how she dared to come into his bedroom. She suddenly realized that he might leap to a natural conclusion— that she’d changed her mind about consummating their unusual marriage.
He swung his legs out of bed. Rietta turned her head away, but she’d already taken notice of his smoothly muscled thighs. I’ll escort you back to your room, if you’re quite sure you’re not hungry.”
The dressing gown’s medieval lines suited the thin lines of his face, making him look like a scholar. But the glint in his eyes as he came nearer was that of a man who had studied sensual arts not sanctioned by church or law. “Unless you’d rather stay here, Rietta. You’re more than welcome to at least half the bed.”
Rietta retreated toward the door. She might entertain the idea of joining him there but she couldn’t escape the feeling that it would be wrong. “I-—I am a little peckish, come to think of it.”
“Very well. I’ll show you the way.”
He carried the candle through the dark hallways. The black shadows swirled around them like blind ghosts as they walked. Remembering that her hair was loose, Rietta bundled the mass up into a more seemly knot, twisting it so that it would stay.
Nick paused before a portrait and held up the chamber-stick. “This is my grandfather, Sir Artemus.”
“There’s a man behind that beard?”
“The family theorizes that the law was interested in the old gentleman and that he grew the beard to baffle identification.”
“I’m sure it must have. His own mother would have been hard-pressed to know him,” Rietta said, peering at the few inches of skin visible behind a veritable hedge of hair. “What do you suspect him of having done?”
“Murder, they say he had terrible nightmares....”
Rietta
schooled her features to reflect nothing but mild interest as the candlelight fell on her face. “You have his eyes, I think.”
“Possibly. Anyway, he’s the romantic fellow who built the bench we stopped at earlier in the evening.”
“Oh, then I’m certain he’s completely innocent of any wrongdoing. A man with such romantic gifts in his
soul ...”
“Romantic notions have led men into desperate enterprises before now, Rietta.”
“Such as?”
He walked on. “Explorers must have romantic souls. Who’d seek a new world without one?”
“True. The Crusaders must have been rather romantic, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps they started out that way, but I imagine the realities of the Holy
Land must have quickly ended their illusions.”
“Did you have any relations in the Crusades?”
“Not that I know of. Our family tends to stay at home. Except me.”
“And Emma. She tried to find a new world, didn’t she?”
“Did I thank you for taking her in?”
“Your mother did.”
“Well, perhaps there’s some wanderlust in our family nowadays But in the past, we’ve always kept to our own fireside.” His voice dropped. “I intend to honor that tradition henceforth.”
“I can see why. I’ve never been in a house I like better than Greenwood, although ...” Her voice trailed off.
“You can see that it needs some money spent on it,” Nick said, finishing her sentence for her.
“I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort, Nick. I was going to say that I can’t wait to see it by daylight.”
Nick took her elbow to steer her behind the staircase. “The servants’ quarters are downstairs. We’ll have to go quietly. Cook grows irritable if she doesn’t have enough sleep. She cooks like an angel when she’s rested, and burns things like the devil if she’s not.”
“Then I’ll go quiet as a snowflake.”
But when Nick pushed open the door it was to find the cook wide awake. “And this is a fine time o’ night,” she began before she saw who it was. “Master Nick!” she gasped, rising to her feet from behind the broad table. “And yer ladyship!”
“Good morning,” Nick said genially. “You’re up late.”
The cook’s pale cheeks flushed pink, the color flooding up into the roots of her white hair, braided into a thick coil that hung halfway down her back. Like Rietta, she wore a flowered shawl around her shoulders, though over a brown, stuff dress. “There’s much work to be done,” she said. “Your lady mother’s inviting half the country to come meet your bride. Good luck to you, my lady.”
“Thank you, Mrs.... ?”
“Cook, my lady.”
“I can’t call you—
Nick saved her. “Mrs. Cook has been working here since I was a boy. She knows all my favorites.”
“I shall have to speak to you about him,” Rietta said. “I’m sure he was no better than a pirate.”
“We’re hungry as pirates,” Nick said. “Can you help us?”
The cook’s warm brown eyes flicked between them. “You’ll be hungry, sure enough,” she said, and the understanding in her voice and the sly touch of her finger to her nose made Rietta turn pink.
“Come down to raid my kitchen, have you? And if I’d not been here, half tomorrow’s victuals would have been gone come the morning, I’ll warrant.” The plump lady cast a calculating glance at the windows. “All right. Sit ye down and I’ll cook eggs for you. But you eat ‘em up quick as lightning for I’ll not have you sitting in my kitchen ‘til cock crow.”
Nick pulled back a chair for Rietta and indicated with as much studied grace as could be found in a ballroom that she should sit down. Rietta swept him a curtsey and took her seat with dignity.
“Isn’t it terribly late for you, Mrs. Cook?” she asked. “I hope you’re not unwell.”
“Not a bit of it, your ladyship—barring a mite o’pain in my joints from time to time. It’s my knees, creaking like the handle of a pump, so they do.”
Rietta saw with an inner smile how Nick sat back, well out of the way, as she and Mrs. Cook were instantly plunged into a discussion of goose grease versus some patent remedy. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Cook had brought out a bottle of her special mixture, a bright yellow liquid dial gurgled thickly when poured. Rietta rubbed a little into the back of her left hand and blinked back tears. “Good heavens! It’s liquid fire.”
Quick as winking, Nick snatched his handkerchief from his pocket, dunked it in a pitcher of water standing on the drain board, and draped it over the back of his wife’s hand. She threw him a glance that had more gratitude in it than any she’d shown so far. He’d moved so quickly, with so little wasted motion, that she’d hardly seen him act until the soaking cloth was comforting her hand.
“How ... how can you stand it?” Rietta asked hoarsely.
“It’s the burning that gets the good of it well into the skin,” Mrs. Cook replied with pride.
“I’ll make you up some of my mother’s preparation. She enjoyed messing about with herbs and such.”
“My lady’s the same. But I’ll swear by Dr. Mountjoy’s horse rub t’my dying day. Eat your eggs.”
“Please sit with us,” Rietta said.
After a token protest, Mrs. Cook did so, but she perched her voluptuous figure on the very edge of her chair.
Though Rietta had only just met Mrs. Cook, she did not seem the sort of woman to be so nervous. Yet she would start at every noise, whether the tick of a fork against a plate or the shuffle of Nick’s feet under the table. When Rietta accidentally dropped her knife to the floor, she thought Mrs. Cook was going to have a convulsion. She’d leap about in her seat and start chattering on any subject that came to mind. Then she’d wind down after the manner of a musical box until the next slight noise.
Rietta could not ask Nick if this was his cook’s usual behavior, but they exchanged an eyebrow-raising silent conversation that seemed to indicate it was not. What, then, had her so on the jump?
About the time Rietta swallowed the last forkful of an excellent eggs Benedict, she found out.
The door from the outside swung open. Mrs. Cook leapt to her feet with, “Ah, look at the time! And me so tired. Sir Nick, as would—
The door swung to much faster than it had opened, but Nick was even quicker over the ground this time than before. He tore the knob out of the other person’s fingers and pushed it wide open.
Amelia stood there, her chin tilted in what should have been mature defiance but looked more like the pose of a martyr. “I’m surprised to see you, Nick.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Not nearly so surprised, I’ll be bound, as I am to see you. What the devil’s the meaning of this, Amelia?”
“You’re a fine one to demand explanations from me. You haven’t been making any yourself, now have you?”
“Don’t change the subject. This isn’t about me. What are you doing coming home at this hour of the morning? Where have you been? And who, may a brother dare ask, have you been there with?”
Rietta had enough experience to recognize all the signs of a huge family quarrel approaching at the speed of a summer thunderstorm. But it was not yet her place to make peace. She stood up. “I’ll be retiring now.”
“Stay, if you please, Rietta. You’ve more knowledge of sisters than I have. Where do you think she’s been?”
“Looking at the moonlight?” Rietta offered.
Nick didn’t listen to this feeble answer at which even Amelia stared at her disbelievingly. He stormed on. “Lying to Mother. Convincing Mrs. Cook to wait up for you. Sneaking out of the house at all hours of the night...”
“Actually, she was sneaking in,” Rietta said. “I doubt Mrs. Cook needed much convincing, as I’m sure she’s known you all since your cradles.”
‘That I have, and if I ever thought I’d live t’see the day when Master Nick acts so high and mighty over a little kissin’ in the moonlight with a man who, for all he hasn’t a grand name, has a fine future.”
“Not if I catch him, he won’t. He’ll have no future at all,” Nick responded. “May I remind all of you that it is past three o’clock in the morning? No girl sneaks home at three o’clock in the morning because of anything so innocent as stolen kisses.”
‘That’s horrid of you,” Amelia said, stamping her foot. “We didn’t do anything ... anything wrong. He’s not the kind to take advantage—no matter how I want him to.”
“What? God, Amelia, if Mother could hear you now her heart would stop like a broken clock.”
‘Then lower your voice so she won’t come in. Anyway, why should I deny the truth? If I’m not sleeping in his arms at this moment, it’s through no fault of my own.”
For all Amelia’s shamelessness, Rietta felt a pang of reluctant respect for her new sister. She had prided herself on her honesty—looking facts in the face had always been a cardinal virtue in her eyes. But she would not have had the spirit to admit openly that she wanted the love of a man.
Thus far, Nick had kissed her twice. She’d not been able to resist him, but now she wondered whether that was his doing or her own. She thought she loved him. Certainly seeing him helpless in a nightmare, her thought had been how best to aid him in her capacity as a loving woman. Yet even then, she’d been visited by a fantastic desire to crawl into the bed beside him. Were desire and compassion so closely linked that one could lead to the other? She was beginning to believe that love was much more complicated than she’d ever guessed.
“What’s his name?” Nick demanded, rounding on his sister. “It’s Arthur Daltrey, isn’t it?”
He stood above her, a potentially threatening figure, though Rietta had noticed that he hadn’t so much as shaken his fist at his sister. His finger, yes; he’d shaken that an inch in front of her nose. But Rietta doubted that Amelia was much intimidated by her brother’s raised voice or powerful shoulders. There was too much pride in her face as she tossed her head and refused to answer.
“If I hurry, I can be at his farm before he’s taken his first leg out of his breeches. He’ll learn that no man despoils a Kirwan and lives.”
“No, Nick,” Amelia gasped, shaken out of her martyred silence by this threat. She stumbled forward to grasp at his arm. “No, it’s not Arthur. It’s ... it’s another man.”
“You’re a poor liar, m’dear.” He looked over her head. “Mrs. Cook, I’ll trouble you to find my sword. I brought it home with me and haven’t seen it since.”
“No!” Tears filled Amelia’s widened eyes, thickening her voice. “You can’t... you mustn’t...”
Rietta came and put her arm about her new sister-in-law’s shaking shoulders. “No, he won’t. No soldier could attack an unarmed farmer.”
She looked up into Nick’s face, sure she’d see him wink. What she saw turned her cold as floating ice. His sea-blue eyes seemed to have gone black as he stared out the open kitchen door into the night beyond. Then he caught his breath and his clenched fists relaxed. “No,” he said. “No soldier could do that, not in a time of peace.”