The Reckless Bride (12 page)

She wanted to ask what circumstances, but his tone was that of an officer used to command; he might have couched it as a request but it was indeed an order. “I just wanted to take my usual constitutional,” she replied.

“You’ll have to pace below.”

Her eyes had adjusted; just as there was no give in his voice, there was none in his features. She felt rebellious, considered refusing.

“Neither Hassan nor I need the distraction of you strolling the deck while we’re on guard and there’s a possibility of attack. Please—go below.”

The “please” worked. She swallowed a sigh, inclined her head, then turned and went back down the stairs.

It wasn’t fair to make guarding them more difficult. He and Hassan weren’t out there because they wanted to be up all night.

She was slipping back into her room when she registered what he’d said.

The more she considered it, she was perfectly certain her strolling the deck wouldn’t distract Hassan.

The following morning, somewhat to Loretta’s surprise Rafe made no attempt to dissuade her and Esme from their proposed excursion to take in more of the town’s sights.

A number of riverboats had tied up at the main wharf. Their party passed numerous other visitors as they strolled the town’s streets. Despite Rafe’s and Hassan’s increased tension, no threat seemed likely with so many others around.

They ambled through the Grassalkovich Palace and the Archiepiscopal Palace, admiring the architecture and ornate furnishings, then stopped at a picturesque inn for lunch.

While Loretta, Esme, Rose, and Gibson chatted about what they’d seen, Rafe and Hassan continued grimly silent, constantly surveying their surroundings. But all remained calm and serene.

When they emerged into the pale light of the winter’s afternoon, Esme halted and glanced around. “Just the cathedral, I think, then we can return to the boat for afternoon tea.” With her cane, she waved at the tall spire of St. Martin’s Cathedral.

The cathedral was only five minutes’ gentle stroll away. One half of the cathedral’s double doors stood open; they passed into the quiet, reverential gloom of a wood-paneled foyer, then walked along beside a heavily carved screen to the entrance to the nave.

Soaring arches and massive beams framed the cathedral’s roof and led the eye to the stained-glass window behind the altar. With Esme beside her, Loretta slowly walked downthe nave, taking note of the richly appointed pews, the jewel-toned runners and crimson prayer cushions. The altar was draped with a fabulous altarpiece of fine linen embroidered with gold thread. Atop it sat two massive candlesticks flanked by two chalices.

She and Esme went straight to the altar to examine the gold-thread embroidery more closely. Rose and Gibson followed at their heels.

Rafe hung back in the foyer, but after one last glance at the open door, he motioned Hassan on, and reluctantly started down the aisle. The church was solid stone; while footsteps were easy to hear inside, it was well nigh impossible to hear anyone approaching the church door, and that door appeared to be their only exit to the street. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation, but was even less comfortable allowing too much distance between him and Hassan and their charges. Inwardly grimacing, he walked slowly down the aisle.

He and Hassan were scanning the choir stalls behind the altar when a sound drew their attention to a chapel to the right of the nave.

Four men emerged from the shadows.

Two were the loiterers from the wharf the day before.

Rafe swore and started down the nave at a run.

None of the four men brandished weapons, yet their threat was clear as they rushed toward the women, presumably to seize them as hostages.

Even as the thought formed, Rafe saw Loretta and Esme whisk themselves around the altar, pulling Rose and Gibson with them.

He had time to offer one word of thanks for quick-thinking women before the four men, now in a loose line in front of the altar, swung to face him and Hassan.

Neither he nor Hassan slowed. Leading with one shoulder, elbow braced, they allowed their momentum to carry them into the men.

The man Rafe collided with slammed back against thealtar. His head snapped back, hitting solid marble, then his legs buckled and he slid down to the floor. The man Hassan collided with fared similarly.

One of the two attackers left standing snarled, and swung a hamlike fist at Rafe’s head. Rafe blocked the blow, and struck hard at the man’s stomach.

They traded blow for blow. Rafe managed to avoid the worst of the wild punches. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the man he’d knocked into the altar struggling to his feet, presumably to join the fray. Rafe spotted an opening in his opponent’s defense, stepped in, and landed a solid blow to the man’s jaw. The man went down like a felled fir.

Rafe swung to face the man’s revived friend just as Loretta, leaning across the altar, brought a chalice down on the man’s head.

The man’s eyes rolled up and he slid down to the floor again.

Rafe turned to help Hassan, who was battling one groggy opponent and one very intent one. Rafe made short work of the groggy man, and by then Hassan had knocked the other unconscious.

The chalice Esme had thrust at her still in her hand, Loretta went around the altar to stare at the man she’d downed. She couldn’t quite believe she’d struck a man and rendered him unconscious, yet there he lay, slumped as if drunkenly asleep.

She expected to feel shocked, or at least overcome with some form of sensibility, yet all she felt coursing her veins was excitement and an exhilaration akin to triumph.

Before she could dwell further on the unexpected feeling, Rafe grabbed her hand, tugged the chalice from her fingers, and set it back on the altar. He waved Esme and the maids forward. “Quickly—out!”

Esme, Gibson, and Rose hurried out from behind the altar, past Loretta and Rafe to where Hassan was waiting to usher them quickly up the nave.

Rafe thrust Loretta before him. “Into the foyer.”

She hurried after the others, Rafe on her heels. He glanced back as they went. She glanced back, too, felt his hand graze her back as if he needed to be sure she was there, close, even when he was looking the other way.

The others were waiting in the foyer.

“Shouldn’t we report this to someone?” Esme asked.

Rafe met her eye. “Do you want to leave the
Uray Princep
and spend the next weeks explaining things to the authorities here?”

Esme blinked. “No.”

“Nor do I.” Rafe looked at the others, then at Loretta. “Luckily, no one got hurt bar a few bruises, and we were the only ones in the cathedral. I suggest we leave those four where they are, and walk calmly and sedately back to the wharf.”

“As if nothing happened?” Loretta asked, and received a grim nod in reply.

By general consensus that was what they did, which gave her time to relive the experience and examine her feelings.

Her surprise at the attack. Her surprise of a different sort as she’d watched Rafe come racing to their rescue, then trade violent blows with one of their attackers.

Her shock as she’d realized the first man he’d hit had recovered and intended to join his fellow-thug in attacking Rafe, two on one. She’d frantically looked around for something with which to hit the man; as usual all the men had dismissed the women and weren’t even looking their way. Esme had grabbed the chalice and handed it to her. Hefting it, she hadn’t even hesitated, but had grimly raised it and determinedly brought it down on the cowardly thug’s head.

It had felt
so
good, so satisfying to be able to do something, to contribute to their party’s relief in however small a way.

To save Rafe from sustaining any unnecessary injuries.

She was fairly sure that a prim and proper young lady was supposed to swoon on witnessing physical violence of that nature. Yet no matter how hard she searched within, she simply didn’t have a swoon in her. Not with excitement still bubbling through her veins.

No. If anything she felt proud—proud to have done her bit and assisted Rafe and Hassan in defending their party.

They reached the wharf without further incident, and, under Rafe’s and Hassan’s watchful eyes, trooped back on board for what she considered a well-deserved afternoon tea.

Rafe didn’t breathe easily until he had the women back on board the
Uray Princep.
His first thought had been that the men had been cult hirelings sent to seize the scroll-holder. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Joining Hassan on the observation deck, he scanned the wharf. “Other than those men, I’ve seen nothing that even hints of the cult here.”

“Nor I.” Hassan stared at the town. “Could they have been local thieves looking to steal from travelers?”

“Possible, I suppose. In the aftermath of war, there’s often trouble with disbanded soldiers who no longer have homes or jobs … but I would have thought the wars too long over for that to still be a problem.” Rafe grimaced. “I wish now that I’d stopped to inquire whether they’d been hired, or if they’d acted on their own.”

“It matters not now.” Hassan straightened from the rail. “We are safe and we’ll keep watch, and the crew will help if we need them.”

“True.” Rafe looked at the bridge. “I’ll have a word to the captain, mention that we were accosted in the town and suggest he pulls out onto the river as soon as possible. It looks like they’ve finished loading.”

Pushing away from the rail, Rafe headed for the bridge.

Once apprised of the situation, the captain expressed his outrage at the attack, and with his cargo fully loaded and allpassengers back on board, readily gave orders for the boat to quit the wharf.

Half an hour later, they were sailing slowly upriver once more.

Late that night, Loretta lay in her bed, and tried logically to examine the changes within herself.

She’d understood from the first that Esme had intended to, indeed had designed their trip to, shake her, Loretta, from her habitual and determined adherence to Robert and Catherine’s straitlaced ideals.

With the exception of Robert, Michelmarshes were not straitlaced. She knew she was not, but had long ago discovered that life was much easier to live, to maintain complete control of, when people believed she was demure, decorous, timid, and quiet.

At least life
had
been easier to control until one too many suitors had begged for her hand.

She had—somewhere about Madrid—accepted that she couldn’t return to London and continue to live as she had been, continue to live a convenient lie. What she hadn’t had any real sense of, and still didn’t, was what sort of life she wanted, what sort of person she wanted to be instead.

Her own person, of course. In dispensing with her prim and proper façade, she wasn’t proposing to replace it with some other misleading persona. No. What she now needed to define was who Loretta Michelmarsh truly was.

Not until she knew that would she be sure how to behave from now on.

Throughout the trip, Esme had been assiduous in challenging her, in this manner or that, to question who she was so she would discover the necessary answer. The greatest challenge Esme had thus far flung in her path was Rafe Carstairs.

He’d already challenged her—pulled her out of her usual patterns of behavior—enough to make her kiss him.

And he’d kissed her back, which had raised her curiosity to a level where the impulse to badger him for more kisses bedeviled her every time she set eyes on him.

But more than anything else, he made her
feel.

In the short time she’d known him, she’d felt more emotions—excitement, exhilaration, anticipation, a lick or two of fear, irritation and anger, as well as something she suspected was desire—and she’d felt those emotions more intensely than she’d ever imagined she could.

Just being in his company left her alive and enthused to live in a dangerous, reckless, throw-her-heart-over-every-hurdle way. He was a potent temptation to live as a Michelmarsh—with giddy abandon.

She didn’t need to look to know Esme was preening.

Yet for herself, she wasn’t so sure. She could have understood her reactions, the changes within, if Rafe had been the man of her dreams. Yet she couldn’t see how he could be.

Heaven knew he was handsome enough, yet he was also high-handedly arrogant, superior and dictatorial when it suited him, charming when that seemed the better course to getting whatever he wanted. He was autocratic, brusque when crossed, and growled like a bear when he didn’t get his way.

Most telling of all, she was fairly certain that she’d never be able to control him—he was simply too strong a character. Like recognized like in that regard, and as he would never be able to control her, that didn’t auger well for a peaceful married life.

An
interesting
married life, perhaps.

But she wasn’t some witless ninny to plunge into anything without due consideration. Until she’d determined what sort of lady she truly was, she should follow the course of wisdom and keep him at arm’s length.

Meanwhile … sleep drew her lids down. She sighed and relaxed.

On the border of sleep she relived again those thrilling moments in the cathedral.

She had to admit she liked feeling alive. Feeling fiercely engaged with life.

Esme would be happy; her sisters would be, too.

Whatever her path forward proved to be, prim and proper Loretta Michelmarsh had died.

December 1, 1822
The
Uray Princep
anchored off Vienna

I
cannot wait to see the shops!” Frau Hemleich beamed. “Spending Christmas here is going to be wonderful!”

Frau Gruber agreed. “I’m so glad Wilhelm suggested we break our journey here.”

Loretta smiled and strolled on, moving through the salon, stopping to chat here and there. All the other passengers were leaving the boat in Vienna, either to spend time there or travel on by land. The boat was currently anchored off the city’s wharves, but would tie up the following morning and remain at dock until the next day.