Linda Needham (7 page)

“You’re nearly thirteen, Glenna Connett, a young lady. About time for something special just for you.”

“Gosh. Thank you.”

Kate continued up the embankment. “We’ll see about finding it tonight. Now you’d best run along and keep the children out of trouble.”

“Yes, Lady Kate.” Glenna dipped a proper little curtsey, not even bothering to hide the brilliance of her smile as she sped off after the others.

Old before her time, sister to Healy and Grady, Doreen and Corey. Courageous and terrified, fiercely protective of her siblings.

Dear, sweet Glenna, who had watched her own father and then her mother and three little sisters die of starvation before her very eyes.

If Father Sebastian hadn’t found them in time…But he had and he’d brought them here to her.

And there were so many others where they came from.

She’d learned quickly that to try to save them all was to risk everyone.

Child by child, heart by heart.

“‘Holding the fly rod firmly in one hand, and the line itself lightly with the index finger of the other, raise the rod nearly vertically, to the, uh!’”—Jared adjusted the line in his left hand and then peered closer at his scribbled notes he’d balanced on the rock beside him—“‘to the half-eleven position…’”

He took the prescribed stance exactly, for the hundredth time that morning, pointed the fly rod at right angles to the stream, and raised it vertically to what he damn well hoped was exactly half-eleven.

And as he did so, the long, airy line, and then the olive dun fly, went sailing gracefully behind him, over his head. He then flicked his wrist to send the fly forward and out and, damnation, if the fly didn’t plop right into the middle of the stream.

“Well, I’ll be damned! Ha!”

That wasn’t so difficult! Fly fishing! Hardly worth the worry of an entire night. It had only taken a bit of study, some practical application, and, once again he’d perfected a skill that had confounded others before him.

He watched the fly travel lightly atop the eddies, pleased with himself, with the day, and the dappled sunlight on the crystalline river.

His bride would have no reason not to believe that he was a flyfisher of great—

Suddenly the line stiffened. “What the devil?”

The long pole arched sharply and nearly shot forward out of his grip.

A fish? The water churned like a volcano, bubbled midstream.

Bloody hell, he’d caught a fish! A bloody Mako shark, by the thrashing power of it!

He yanked hard on the grip and the fish rocketed out of the water, whipped and wriggled as though offering up a direct challenge to him, then it dove again, already taking a hard, silver flashing course downstream.

Heading straight for a sharp bend of boulders and a thick stand of reeds.

Where he would surely lose the bloody thing.

“Oh, hell!” Jared stepped gingerly along the bank, following his catch as it shot over rocks and mossy lumps, yanking on the madly arching pole, amazed that it didn’t snap.

Blast it all! He had to at least bring in one decent sized fish; his reputation and his cover story depended on it. These flyfishers were damn serious about their sport.

His bride seemed just as serious.

And oddly knowledgeable about fishing.

He could see the fish just a few inches beneath the clear water, speckled and rainbow-sleek and enormous.

He played it for a while, moving closer to it. But just when he was sure that it was tiring, the damned thing took off again, belying its size and dragging him off the bank and into the stream, right up to his calves.

“You’ve hooked a big one, sir!” A boy appeared out of the reeds ahead of him, standing astride a boulder overhanging the sharply bending waters.

“Away from here, boy!” Jared suddenly felt the complete fool, wrestling with a fish that was dragging him deeper into the middle of the stream.

“I c’n net him for ya, sir!” The boy looked ready to go in after it, headfirst.

Hell, he didn’t need that kind of help. “Leave it be, boy. I’ll bring him in myself.”

“Who you talkin’ to, Grady?” A much younger girl scrambled through the reeds and the water toward the field of boulders, flashing Jared a toothless smile.

“Go away, Dori!”

“Uh-oh, Grady! I think you found one of those fish men we’re not s’pose to bother!”

“Shhhh, Dori!” the boy bellowed. “You’re not supposed to shout.”

“What kinda fish is it?” came another voice from somewhere behind him.

Jared grunted and stumbled forward even faster over the moss-slick stones that lined the stream bed, trying to at least keep the fish in place. “I’ll thank you to leave here, boy.”

“Hey, what’s the matter, Lucas?”

His audience was multiplying by the second, with children popping out from behind willow bogs and fallen trunks, a full half dozen of them, and then the biggest damned dog he’d ever seen.

“There ’e is! Get ’im now, sir!” the first boy shouted frantically, as Jared sloshed past the projecting boulder where the boy was perched. “Reel ’im in!”

Reel him? Hell, the knob on the handle! He’d forgotten it was there.

Not that reeling helped him much at all. He kept stumbling forward with the force of the current and the fish’s monumental struggle. He reeled in a foot or two
of line at a time, trying to stay upright while the children followed him downstream along the bank.

“You’re gonna win if you bring him in, sir! You’re gonna win!”

“Catch him!”

“Woof!” The huge dog was loping alongside the stream now, keeping perfectly level with him.

“Help the fish man, Grady!”

“Don’t you dare, boy!” Jared shouted as he slipped on a stone and went down on his backside for an instant, stumbling upright in the current with the next step.

Now the demon fish made a hard course for a shallow pool on the far side of the stream, away from the clamoring children and bounded by willow and thick with reeds, obviously trying to shake him.

“Not while I still have a breath in me, old man!” Jared followed the fish, reeling in more and more line, unwilling to surrender a single inch as the beast tried to hide itself in the vegetation.

“You’ve almost got him!”

Damn right I do!

Wet to his chin and now prepared to die for this particular prize, Jared threw himself into the reeds and onto the wrangling fish, holding fast to the fly rod and his pride.

He struggled with the fish, reeling and reeling, hearing the children cheering him from the other bank.

“The fish man did it!”

“He caught him!”

“I hope he wins!”

“Woof!”

Jared made a sweeping grab for the line where it had hooked the fish—a fat rainbow trout, he was certain—and then stood up, turning toward the opposite bank to display the beauty to his audience.

But as he turned, he realized that the voices were gone, and the children.

Vanished like some fairy clan.

Everyone, that is, but his wife, who was standing in the sunlight on the opposite side of the stream, her hands shaping her hips, and a very odd look in her eye.

He’d never felt so exposed in his life. So wet. So unsure of himself.

How much had she seen?

And what would she think of his “technique”?

“Well, then,” she said, raising her hand to her brow, shielding her eyes from the sun, “you’ve got a lovely, large rainbow trout there, Colonel Huddleswell.”

Trout, indeed. He was hard as hell for her, had a lovely, large erection, right here in the middle of an icy stream.

Which she must not be able to see, because that was a heady grin lighting her lovely face.

Enigmatic and amused.

And beautiful.

And, bloody hell, she was wearing a pair of trousers!

“W
here the devil are your skirts, madam?” Hell, the woman was nothing but shapely legs and captured sunlight and clouds of untamed hair.

Standing right there in the open, where any man could see her!

“Where are my what?” Her lilting, laughing challenge hopped across the stream and slammed into his chest.

“Your skirts! You’ve forgotten them!” His gut molten hot with a wild need to shield her from prying eyes and groping hands, Jared started across the stream, working hard against the current and the slippery stones, his catch flopping and tugging on the line behind him.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She stepped easily along the root-tangled bank, coming even with him. “I haven’t
forgotten anything. It’s my custom to wear trousers on tournament day.”

“Your custom?” Struck momentarily speechless, Jared stopped midstream and pointed at her legs with the tip of his fly rod, waggled it at her. “Replacing your…your skirts with britches is your custom?”

She laughed again, lightly, plucking at the excess tweed of her britches tucked into her boot tops. “Great heavens, don’t tell me you’re a prig? I’m shocked! And you a man of the wide world.”

“I’m hardly a prig.” He was…proper. Protective. At least when it came to his wife. And she was almost naked.

She gave another laugh, good-natured and coercive, teasing his ears, tempting his heart. “But you don’t approve of my working garb?”

He bloody well didn’t approve! Not of his wife romping around the countryside in little more than a linen shirtwaist and a pair of woollen underdrawers. No wonder the denizens of Badger’s Run flocked round her, slavering.

Nothing left to their imagination.

Or his.

“Damnation, that’s not a proper costume for a lady.” He slogged up onto the bankside, leaving the sorry fish to thrash around at the edge of the water, still attached to the line.

“It’s quite proper if you’re a woman, as I am, who manages a sportsman’s lodge, which I do.” And as though to prove this outrageous statement, she waded past him, deeper into the pool, and pulled a thickly branching root out of the stream. “As you can see for
yourself, skirts would get in the way of my work.”

“Work that you don’t need to do. I can’t believe that your husband would approve of…this?”

God, she was beautiful. Standing to her ankles in the stream, the sunlight sparkling gold and red behind her, making a halo of her hair. Her cheeks glowing pink, her nose unfashionably honeyed with a constellation of freckles.

And that blue, unfettered, unflinching gaze piercing him through.

“I truly don’t have time to care whether my husband objects or not. He’s hardly earned the right to have a say in what I do, let alone in what I wear.”

There was a stinging blow. “Nevertheless, he’s your husband. According to the laws of God and man, the right became his the moment you became his wife.”

“That remains to be seen. Now, where’s the rest of your morning’s catch? It needs to be recorded.” Her smile was as cynical as the single brow she arched at him. She pointed toward the huge trout whipping around in the pool, the force of it yanking at the line wrapped around his fist. “Or is that it?”

Damned distracting woman. “Released as I caught them. Anything under twenty pounds is hardly worthy of recording.”

“Twenty pounds?” A disbelieving laugh. “You’re certainly sure of your luck.”

“I’ve no use for luck. Fishing is all about skill.” A great big lie, but he watched her face for some indication of how much she’d seen of his bumbling flight down the stream.

Had she been part of his audience through the whole
bloody incident? Judging his ungainly skills as he careened through the water, deciding that he was a liar as well as a toff?

“That may be true, Colonel. But Rooney and Foggerty have done a fine job making our fisheries the best in the county. A strong breeding of fish, clean, challenging waters, quiet reserves—”

“Quiet? Then who the devil were those children?”

“Ah…” She cast him a rueful smile and stepped out of the stream, tossing the root into the brambles. “My apologies if they disturbed your sport. They’re full of spunk, but they’re good children.”

“Yes, but where did they come from?” He’d never seen them before. “We’re miles from the village.”

Kate wondered once again why such a thing as the children should matter to the colonel, beyond the children frightening the fish. But why did he take everything about Badger’s Run so personally? The tournament, the wine cellar, the other guests, the staff, her britches…

And why was it that just looking at the man, staring at him, really, made her feel as though she were standing on the edge of a hazardous precipice?

Waiting for something.

Or someone.

“The children come from…well, all over.” It was the truth and she didn’t want him to think they’d be around tomorrow to ruin his fishing again.

“Are they poachers? Children of poachers?”

“Hardly. But even if they were, they are nothing to concern yourself with. Unless of course, you were my husband come home to taunt me. Which you’re not.”

Great heavens, why the devil did she say that?

Because Hawkesly’s clothes fit him perfectly.

More than perfectly. Even soaking wet, with his dark hair crisp and curling against his forehead. The fine, broad linen shirt beneath the dripping tweed of his unbuttoned waistcoat, molded like a second skin across the breadth of his chest.

His cravat hanging loosely at his collar.

His trousers fit just as perfectly, flat across his stomach, clinging to his thighs, his triangular hips, the buckskin shifting as he heeled the fly rod into the ground and caught her chin with his cool, water-sweet knuckle, tipping her gaze up to his fierce one.

“If I were your husband, I’d do far more than taunt you.”

Her heart took a sideways leap, dancing with the danger of him. There was something familiar here too, his overwhelming nearness, the sound of his breathing, the feeling of him. His height and the breadth of his shoulders, the way he blotted the sun from the sky.

“Then I suppose we’re both fortunate, Colonel.” Kate stumbled backward out of his reach, able to breathe again, and think. “All I can promise is that you won’t see the children again. Come, you’d better get your fish to the recording table. Where’s the rest of your gear?”

He narrowed his eyes at her for a long study, then grunted and nodded upstream. “That way.”

Kate started off along the bank, satisfied at the man’s grumbling as he wrestled the trout out of the stream, at the crunch and snap of his footfalls as he followed. She rescued his rucksack and fly box from a boulder, then held open the large creel.

He dumped his wrangling catch into the basket,
dropped the lid and shouldered the strap. But the buckle on the creel had caught his watch chain and yanked the watchcase partially out of his pocket.

“Careful, Colonel, your watch.” Kate tugged it the rest of the way out of his pocket, then turned it. “I’m sorry, it’s soaked.”

And its embossed gold case seemed familiar somehow.

The crest on the front, perhaps. A shield bearing a ship and a lion and three crossed swords. Arrows through it and a ribbon on each side. It gave her a vague, looming feeling of something always nearby. Something that she’d purposely avoided for a long time, never looked very closely at.

Something she’d seen in London, on a building? No, closer than that. On board a ship? Or here, at the hall, perhaps?

Something overhead, overhanging, forever looking down upon her.

“Blast it all,” he said, lifting the watch by the chain, “I’ve ruined my watch.”

His
watch?
His?

A chill trickled down her spine.

Yes, that was the trouble. The watch couldn’t belong to Colonel Huddleswell.

Just as he couldn’t have arrived yesterday wearing gilded buttons on his coat with the exact same crest.

Because now she knew exactly where she’d seen that ship and the lion and those swords.

That crest couldn’t possibly belong to the colonel.

Because it belonged to…dear God!

She glanced up at the man, her heart stopped, her pulse gone dry.

“It’s a lovely watch, Colonel,” she said as offhandedly as she could manage. “Where did you get it?”

He frowned and rubbed the back of it against his waistcoat. “I had it made for me in London.”

Please, God, it can’t be true!

“When?” She could barely ask the question, because she already knew the answer.

“Three or four years ago.”

Hawkesly’s crest! The same one carved above the doorway arches at the hall.

And into the face of the fireplace mantels.

And emblazoned on the buttons of the coat he had arrived in yesterday!

His
crest.

Him!

The bastard!

Kate shoved at his chest, stepped back from his nearness, letting the watch dangle below his waist.

The message for Hawkesly. It had come to the hall, because the sender had assumed that her husband had already arrived at the hall. And the trunk was also his, sent ahead of his arrival. But he’d come here instead—to Badger’s Run.

Because…why? To tease her? No.

Because…he was a malicious, contemptible, betraying, spying scoundrel.

Now the lout was blithely listening to the back of the watch, as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “It’s stopped cold.”

And I know just how it feels, Lord Hawkesly.

Cold. Betrayed.

Her bloody wandering husband home for an entire
day and he hadn’t even had the decency to introduce himself.

Blast it all, he’d spent this whole time lying to her, making sport, spying on her, pretending he was the world’s expert flyfisherman, or whatever the devil he was doing.

But why?

“A bit risky, isn’t it, Colonel Huddleswell,” she said, steadying her breathing, “to take your watch with you into the stream?”

He looked up at her as he fisted the watch and shook it. “An unfortunate misstep, madam. Not planned.”

So blasé, Lord Hawkesly, so completely in control. “But quite fortunate that my husband’s clothes fit you so remarkably well.”

He raised a brow and studied her, then said slowly, “I’ll have to thank him someday.”

The overbearing blackguard! Feeling her anger begin to crawl out of her chest like a flush which he might take for passion, Kate picked up his fly box and rucksack then stalked the rest of the way to the path, safely out of range of the temptation to shove him back into the stream.

She stopped at the top of the weedy bank and turned back to him. “You might get your chance to thank him very, very soon.”

“How’s that?” He narrowed his gaze at her, shouldering his creel and starting up the embankment, like a monster rising out of the sea in pursuit of her. “What do you mean, soon?”

Yes, what the devil was she doing, taunting him? Her
mouth went dry. “I have every reason to believe that my husband is on his way home, even as we speak.”

“Oh?” He’d made the embankment without straining a muscle. “What makes you think that?”

She kept a good step away from him, wondering how he could possibly have become larger in the last few minutes. “Just a bit of detection work on my part. Evidence coupled with speculation.”

“What sort of evidence?”

Your bloody self, in the flesh, you bloody blighter. Standing right here in front of me, looking smug and sure.

Baiting his wife.

Taking his advantage.

Learning her secrets.

The children! Kate’s heart dropped into her knees, making her want to run. Dear God, he’d find the children at the hall.

A single day spent in Hawkesly’s company and she knew for a fact that he would never understand what they meant to her, and surely never allow her to continue her work with them.

Well, she’d just have to slow Hawkesly down in his snooping and give herself a time to plan an explanation, or an escape.

“You were speaking of this evidence of Hawkesly’s return.”

Kate swallowed back the lump of fear and started down the path toward her horse, forming her plan as she strode along in front of him. “Ah, yes, well…It isn’t much, really. Just a letter that has come for him.”

“A letter?” She could hear the restraint in his voice, a dangerous darkness. “It came to Badger’s Run?”

Kate couldn’t help the little laugh that popped out of her chest, pleased that she had confused him, if only for the moment. “Now, why ever would a letter come for my husband to Badger’s Run?”

Hawkesly drew in a breath as though to speak sharply, but then shook his head. “Of course, it would come to Hawkesly’s estate.”

“Hawkesly Hall, actually. Yes, the message came to Hawkesly Hall.” She was about to step over a fallen beech, when she felt his huge hand on her shoulder, a tugging that sat her down hard on the thick trunk and brought his face to hers.

“When, madam?”

“Well, let me see…” Kate pondered this slowly, with a finger to her lips and a sigh. “I think it was sometime…ummmm…last night.”

“Last night?” he said with a deeply satisfying bluster that straightened him. He shot a glance toward the hall, with a deadly accuracy.

“Or was it early this morning?” Kate said, tapping her cheek, suddenly recognizing her recklessness as part of a growing plan to throw him off balance. Because she had so few other weapons to wield against him. “Not that it matters. He’s not home yet.”

He leaned down to her, making her bend backward to keep away from the soft, distracting brush of his breath against her mouth. “It matters a great deal.”

“Why?” Confess, you blackguard!

“Because…” Hawkesly leveled a finger at her, then lowered it. “Because it means that…”

“Yes, that my husband is on his way home.”

“Perhaps.” He took a sudden, uncaring stance, giving a shrug. “It could also be a simple greeting from a friend.”

“If that’s so, then it’s the first he’s received since I’ve lived there as his so-called bride.” The word bounced across his mouth, then brushed back against hers. “So I can only assume—”