If He's Noble (Wherlocke Book 7) (Paranormal Historical Romance) (7 page)

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, tilted her face up to his, and began to gently wash the tears from her face. “A lot for a little terrified child.”

“If I had remembered what happened earlier my father might still be alive,” she said, and had to fight the urge to start weeping again.

“There is no way to know that. And, you were a child. How could a child understand what she was dealing with and explain that to an adult? Then again, it might well have gotten him killed earlier while you and Simeon were still too young to deal with the woman as she helped herself to all that belonged to you.”

“There is that. He would have sent them away immediately. But, all that is in the past. As you say, I was but a child. I doubt I could have even explained it all in a way that would have worked to warn my father. I can just imagine it. ‘Oh, Papa, I found Aunty reading books and asked her to take me to see Mama and then I got lost and could not find Aunty anywhere.’”

“Which sounds very much like a child of five. Now you can look back, see that she was reading his ledgers, and understand what that meant.”

“This plan to set my uncle up as the baron has been one she has nursed for a very long time.”

“From the beginning, I suspect.” Unable to resist he began to lightly stroke her hair, letting the tips of his fingers drag through the thick, soft curls. “How did your mother die, Rose?”

“She fell and she was with child. Everything went wrong and she ended up miscarrying and bleeding to death. And, oh sweet God, do you think Augusta had something to do with that?”

He shrugged. “Well, it is a possibility.”

He saw her mouth tremble and, holding her by the chin, he pressed his lips against hers, not wanting her to begin weeping again. Comfort swiftly changed to desire as he lightly nipped at her bottom lip. She shivered in his arms and her mouth opened slightly. Bened slid his tongue into its heat and savored the taste of her as he held her as close as he dared.

When Bened slipped his tongue inside her mouth, Primrose thought she ought to be disgusted but instead her whole body grew hot and all she could think of was pressing herself as close to him as possible. The very few kisses she had had before this had never made her feel this way. It was sweet, fiery, heady, and made her greedy for more of them. She murmured her disappointment when he ended the kiss, slowly pulling his mouth away from hers. She was pleased to see that he was breathing heavily for it meant that kiss had moved him as much as it had her.

“That was probably not a wise thing to do when we are about to spend a night together in the woods,” Bened said but was unable to resist brushing his mouth over hers one more time.

She allowed him to ease her off his lap. Just when had she crawled into his lap, she wondered, but did not really care. Reluctant though she was to admit it, she knew he was right. They were still new to each other. Realizing that they could stir up so many feelings with just a kiss when they were about to sleep together in the woods, alone, but feet apart, was only asking for trouble.

Primrose sat on the bedding and watched him put his weapons around. He moved so quietly and gracefully for such a big man. It was a joy to watch him. For the first time in her entire life, Primrose found herself curious as to what he would look like without his clothes as he moved around.

Shocked at the path her thoughts had taken, she asked, “Did you find anything out there?”

“I believe we are very safe here. Your aunt has been in the area but there is no reason for her to return. Whoever that man was off the road that thought to shoot at us as we road by, was probably just some ruffian she hired to deal with us so she could continue to hunt down your brother.”

“She has to know where he is going.”

“I would not be surprised if she does know, but dealing with him before he gains any allies would make everything much easier.”

“True. How do you know she was in this area?”

“Recall the men who stole our horses?” He sat across the fire from her and she nodded. “They did not trust her, two of them most adamantly and one more interested in payment due. I believe he went to an arranged meeting place. What I could read by the marks in the dirt is that she pulled up in her carriage, faced him, and three newly hired men came up behind. One of those cut his throat while she watched. Then they dragged his body off into the woods.”

“There is a part of me that knows she is a cold woman, perfectly capable of such things, yet I am still shocked. She is not just cold, she is evil.”

“Since what she is doing is all to gain a title and money, to make herself more important, then, aye, evil is a word that fits. She also showed her new hirelings how she responds to failure.”

“Fear to keep them in line. She is fond of that trick. I now see she used it on me but I have watched her use it on women she needed to hold her place in society no matter how foolish her husband was. Everyone has secrets and she had a very calm, cold way of letting any who thought to criticize her that she knew all of theirs and would have no trouble whispering it into a few important, influential ears. I always thought that was so malicious. Actually said as much to her and she calmly told me that it was how one held one’s place in society. I thought some of it was also a bit of revenge for something bad one of them may have said about her or her husband.”

“Not uncommon in society.”

“It has never sounded like a particularly pleasant place, or rather group, to me and I have managed to avoid it.”

“I was never invited in but from what I have seen amongst the ones in my family who have dealt with it, it is complicated, cutthroat, and often just plain cruel. I have no idea why so many are so desperate to become part of it.”

Bened banked the fire, tugged off his boots, and climbed beneath the blanket of his rough-ground bed. He watched as Primrose did the same and chuckled at her grimace. “It is not bad unless you have found a rock.”

“It all feels like rock to me but I will manage. I just do not understand why men would actually choose to do such a thing.”

“For the thrill of the hunt.”

After shifting around a little, Primrose found a reasonably comfortable position and closed her eyes. “I think it must be a great thrill, for after a night on the ground the whole lot of you must be creeping about the woods like crippled old men. I am certain it makes the hunt very challenging.” She smiled as Bened’s laughter followed her into sleep.

Bened watched her sleep. There were scars on Primrose’s mind and heart, ones put there by a cruel woman who thought she deserved more than she had. If the remembering had begun, there would be a few hard days ahead. It pained him to think it but the world would be a better place without Augusta Wootten in it.

He was just slipping into sleep when she whimpered. He looked at her and saw tears leaking from beneath her closed eyes. Bened sighed and tugged his bedding closer to hers. It would be uncomfortable but he could not leave her hurting like that so he put his arm around her, tugged her close, and calmed her. To his surprise she made a sound as if something pleased her and huddled even closer, resting her head on his shoulder. It was going to be a long night, he thought, as any urge to sleep was pushed aside by other basic urges it would take time to quell.

Bened glanced over at Primrose and grinned. She was looking very flushed and he doubted it was because she had woken up in his arms. It was a warm day and he knew women’s fashions, even the plain serviceable gown she wore, were not the most comfortable attire to wear for a long ride in the sun. The look on her face told him she really wanted to complain but was biting her tongue. The touch of amusement that brought him was a welcome relief from the tight knot of desire he had suffered from for most of the night while thinking far too much about the kiss they had shared.

“’Tis nearly midday,” he said, “and I would like to pause for a bite to eat.”

Primrose tore her gaze from the cool temptation of the river she could see through the trees. “Oh, that would be lovely. Someplace in the shade. And I will take some time to wash off the dirt.”

“What dirt? You look quite fetching. There is a pretty gloss to your skin from the sun.”

“You mean the dew?”

“The what?”

“The dew. That is what my mother used to call it. She said women did not sweat, they became dewy. It will be nice to wash away the dew and the dust of the road with some cool river water.”

“Huh. Dew. That is a very ladylike way of speaking of it. But, I am not sure you should go to the river. We are too close to your aunt’s trail, which appears to matching right along with ours. Might not be safe. River is not too safe, either.”

He watched her out of the corner of his eyes as he spoke. She bit her lip and looked at the river. He was teasing her and it astonished him. It had been years since he had done any teasing, especially with a woman. Bened found that he was enjoying himself.

“It is not dew,” she snapped as she dismounted the moment they halted beneath some trees. “It is sweat. I am sweating like a hard-run horse and I wish to wash it off. And my feet hurt. They feel as if they are twice the size they were when I put my boots on. I want to put them in that water. ’Tis calling to me.” She yanked a small towel and some fresh stockings from her bag. “I am going down to the river,” she added in a tone that practically begged him to argue with her.

“Go then. Answer the call. Or, you could just allow your feet to answer it.”

“Oh, hush,” she grumbled, suddenly realizing that he had been teasing her.

It was difficult not to run to the river as fast as she could. The sun had felt so nice at the start of the day but had quickly grown to be a torment as the day grew warmer. Her feet hurt so much inside her boots she was surprised she could still walk. Shedding her boots and stockings as quickly as she could, she waded into the water and sighed with relief.

Bliss, she thought. The cooling effect of the water quickly spread through her body. Since she had no intention of putting the same pair of stockings back on, Primrose grabbed one, soaked it in the water, and, as discreetly as possible, began to wash up.

For a minute, she thought seriously about shedding all her clothes and sinking her whole body into the water. Then good sense prevailed. She was out in the open, at a river she had little knowledge of, and in an area that could be a lot more traveled than she knew. It would be beyond reckless to sit in the water naked as the day she was born. Anyone could come along. The fact that she would have even considered such a shocking action told her that she may have been traveling around by herself for far too long.

Just as she was buttoning the front of her gown again, she saw a young maid holding a basket hurry down the hill to stand at the river’s edge. Thinking the girl had come to eat her lunch by the river, Primrose wondered if there was a chance she could buy whatever the maid had in the basket. Patting the skirts of her gown to see if she had any coins in her pocket, Primrose watched the maid open the basket, pull out something white and wriggling, draw her arm back, and hurl it into the river.

It yelped as it hit the water and Primrose leapt to her feet. She did not think twice but plunged into the river and walked as quickly as she was able to in the water toward the animal that struggled to paddle back to shore. Then she felt the current. It was tugging hard at her feet. Keeping her eyes on the little animal fighting so valiantly to stay alive, she reached beneath the water to tie up her skirts and free her legs before pushing farther into the river. Primrose was afraid she was going to have to swim into the swift current and was bracing herself for plunging all the way into the water when she heard a bellow from the shore followed by a lot of splashing. A heartbeat later Bened stood beside her, glaring down at her.

 

 

Bened finished washing the travel dust off and had to admit that it felt good. He also understood why Primrose had wanted to put her feet in the water. It had been a while since he had enjoyed anything so simply pleasurable as tugging his boots and hose off his feet and setting them in the cool water.

He frowned in the direction of where she had gone to the river’s edge. She had had long enough, he decided. It was not wise for her to be out anywhere alone. No matter how hard he had tried, he had been unable to shake Augusta. He knew she was hunting Primrose’s brother but that would change quickly if the woman got word of her niece’s presence in the area.

Primrose would be almost as big a prize for the woman as Lord Simeon. She could not get hold of all she wanted without putting the girl out of her way as well as the son. Bened did not know what the woman got out of marrying Primrose to a filthy, aging roué but he suspected it was a lot more than Primrose thought it was. The very last thing he wanted was for Primrose to be in the hands of a woman who could do to a child as she had done.

Stepping out of the river, he wiped his feet dry with his hose and then rinsed them out in the water. He looked at his shirt and rinsed that out as well. The question was, did he go back to the horses to get a new shirt, or just go find Primrose. He grinned, tossed his shirt and hose over his shoulder, and set off down the river to where she was cooling her feet. They would be traveling together for quite a while, he told himself, so she should learn to see him in the rough as soon as possible.

The moment he saw her, he tossed his wet clothes onto a rock and ran toward her. She was standing in the river. Then he saw that she was actually moving into deeper water where the current would be more dangerous. He yelled at her but she did not turn back so he went into the water after her, his heart pounding as he feared he would not reach her before the current swept her to her death. When he reached her side, he beat back the urge to just pick her up and take her back to shore. She was close enough to grab now if the need arose.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he demanded, the fear that had choked him fading as he saw how she was standing steadily in the water of a river notorious for catching people in its swift currents and drowning them or smashing them against the rocks a little farther downstream.

She ignored him and grabbed hold of his hand. “Hold fast to me so that I can stretch out and reach that poor thing.”

All Bened could see was a small animal’s head bobbing on the water. It was not getting any closer to them but he knew it was paddling furiously against the current that was trying to pull it deeper into its flow. He looked at Primrose who was hanging on to his hand and reaching out to it. He braced himself and switched his grasp from her hand to her wrist, then reached beneath the water with his other hand to grab hold of her tucked up skirts, struggling not to think of her bared legs hidden by the water. Now that he knew she was safe he was a little too interested in the way her wet gown clung to her full breasts. He did not need thoughts of her bared legs adding to that distraction.

“You are trying to save a rat?” he asked.

“It is a puppy. She just threw it in the river.”

Primrose feared it was taking her too long and she would soon see the animal pulled off downstream to its death. She reached out as far as she could, confident that Bened would hold fast. Her fingers brushed over the animal’s small head and then she clutched the loose skin at the back of its neck. It did not struggle against her grip and she yanked it free of the current, clutching it against her chest as Bened wrapped an arm around her waist and carried her back to the riverbank.

They had just reached the shore when she abruptly realized he was bare-chested. And a magnificent chest it was, she decided. Broad, a small patch of curly black hair in the middle of whatever they called a man’s breasts, with smooth dark skin stretched over muscle. She was just thinking of rubbing her cheek against it when he set her down on her feet. The direction of his gaze reminded her that her skirts were kilted up, exposing her bare legs, and she quickly lowered them, grimacing at the feel of the wet material against her skin.

“That river has killed a lot of people,” Bened said, resisting the urge to flex some muscles when he saw how intently she was staring at his chest, “and you just walk into it to save a rat.”

“It is a puppy!” she snapped, finally finding the strength to reluctantly tear her gaze away from his chest and look into his face. “
She
threw it in the water.” Primrose glared at the maid who was wise enough to quickly avert her greedy gaze from Bened’s chest. “Took it out of that basket and just hurled the poor thing into the water.”

“My mistress told me to do it. This one is for the river, is what she said. She saw it was a runt and only had one eye and told me to be rid of it,” the young maid said.

“Then she should have done it when it was first born, not waited until it was weaned,” said Bened. “Snap its neck. A quick death before it is old enough to know what life is. This rat—”

“Puppy!” Primrose yelled.

He ignored her. “—was aware and drowning is a bad death. They have time to try to fight it.”

“No one noticed it until the mistress came to look over the litter when she was told they were weaned. She wanted to see if there was one she wished to keep or if she would just sell all of them. She will just make me come back and try again,” she added with a glance at the puppy Primrose was busily rubbing dry with her towel.

“Who deals with the breeding?” asked Bened.

“The stable master does all the breeding of the dogs. He kept the last one she wanted gone but it was not maimed like this one.”

“Tell him what I said about snapping the neck.”

“I will, sir.” She looked again at where Primrose was working so hard to get the puppy dry. “Keep the basket.” She turned and made her way back up the hill.

Bened watched how Primrose coddled the tiny dog, and sighed. He knew they would be lugging the thing along with them and he would have to keep an eye out for its safety as well. If it ever got separated from them, she would insist upon searching for it, ignoring the fact that they were being hunted. As a man who had once saved a three-legged dog from being shot by its owner, he fully understood but it was a very poor time to add a helpless animal to their baggage.

“You have saved it so now we can leave,” he said, hoping she would see that they could not take the animal on their journey yet knowing it was a false hope.

Primrose looked around and frowned. “The maid left.”

“She left the basket.” He sighed when she hurried over to get it and ever so gently tucked the tiny animal inside. “You do understand that we are probably being hunted now as assiduously as your brother, do you not?”

“Of course I do.”

He winced for there was a definite tone of insult to her voice. “It is not a good time to be dragging a puppy along with us. They need more care than an older dog. More careful watching. Perhaps we can take a little time seeing if someone else would take it and care for it.”

“No.” She stood up with the basket on her arm. “They will not do it as well as I can.”

Primrose faced him, intending to tell him as firmly as possible that there would be no talk of leaving the puppy somewhere. Then her gaze settled on his chest. She was a countrybred woman and she had seen men’s chests before, she told herself, yet his had her heart skipping around in her chest in a way that made her a little breathless. Her palms itched to touch that smooth, warm skin. When the thought of pressing her lips to it, maybe tracing those ribbed muscles on his stomach, popped into her head, she startled herself so much she was finally able to turn her mind back to the matter of the little dog.

“Rose,” he began.

“I know puppies are a lot of care, but I will do it. I saved the poor creature. I will care for her. It has been a long time since I have had a dog and I have decided I will have this one.” She turned and went to get her stockings and boots.

Shaking his head, Bened knew that was the end of it. He had seen that look in his mother’s eyes from time to time when she wanted something and his father had protested. Once that look had settled on his mother’s face, his father had just stopped arguing. Most of the time, his mother had proven correct in what she had wanted for it had made life better, cooking easier, and any number of other improvements in the crowded house. Bened was not sure a tiny one-eyed dog would prove of any value, but he had no intention of arguing anymore. He went and got his shirt, hose, and boots.

Once back at the camp, while Bened was donning his shirt and getting out new hose before he put his boots back on, Primrose sought out a sheltered area to put on clean stockings and her own boots. She then stood and wrung out her skirts. Already they were drying but she feared the dress might be ruined. Then she sneezed.

Bened was at her side in a moment. “You sneezed.”

“I am not surprised. We are out in the wild and I was just in the water. Between the two there are a lot of good reasons for me to sneeze.”

“You could be growing ill.”

“Of course, I
could
but I sincerely doubt that I am. The water was not cold and today is quite warm.”