The Reckless Bride (25 page)

She hadn’t forgotten the previous night, but had decided she was in no mood to let his idiocy distract or deflect her. She would set him straight on that subject later. Now, however … frowning, she glanced at his face. “I must remind Esme to repay you for the monies you’ve outlaid on our behalf.”

He’d been scanning the street; his watchfulness seemed an ingrained habit. He met her eyes. “No need.” He looked away again. As she opened her lips to argue, he added, “Consider your company, and that of your outrageous relative, recompense enough.”

Eyes forward, she tapped her fingers on his sleeve while deciding how to broach what might be a sensitive subject. “You were an army captain. I’ve always understood that a captain’s stipend isn’t all that much.”

“I believe I mentioned I’m as rich as Golden Ball.”

“I thought you were exaggerating.”

“I wasn’t.”

That caused her a moment’s pause. Allowed curiosity to come to the fore. “How?”

“The five of us who went to India were Hastings’s—the Governor-General’s—personal appointees. Aside from a significantly greater stipend, that also gave us considerable scope for trading on our own behalf. We invested in several highly successful ventures. By the time we quit India, we were all extremely wealthy.”

His gaze touched her face, then he went on, his voice lower, “I’m more than warm enough to stand the reckoning, and you, Esme, Rose, and Gibson have provided Hassan and me with a disguise good enough to get us this far without any major clash with the cult. To me, that’s invaluable. Added to that, you’ve tended my wound diligently and all of you have provided us with company of a sort we wouldn’t otherwise have had.”

Still she frowned. “All that may be so, yet this was Esme’s trip.”

“Which she’s allowed me to appropriate for my mission.” The Wurttemburg Arms lay just ahead. Slowing, he caught her gaze, for a moment searched her eyes, then to her surprise he ducked his head and kissed her—too briefly for her to properly react. “Let it go.” He mumured the words as he straightened. “That’s a battle you’re not going to win.”

Steadying her nerves, quelling the warm, fluttery anticipation his kiss had provoked, she shot him a more direful frown, humphed, but let him guide her to the inn door.

She pretended not to notice the smile that curved his lips.

Decided that ignoring it, and the subject of their discussion, would be in her best interests.

Because he was right. She needed to save her powder for the more important engagement—the private tussle brewing between him and her.

Late that evening, in a highly dissatisfied mood, Loretta paced her room. Arms folded, she halted before the fireplace, fixed her gaze on the flames, and felt like growling.

As far as she could see, she faced a simple choice: go to Rafe’s room, to the left of the suite she was sharing with Esme, and resume their engagement—the one he’d summarily terminated—or alternatively accede to his high-handed decree that now was not the time. That she needed more time to think before she could declare her own mind. That regardless of what she thought and felt and wanted, they had to wait …

Until when? Until he decided she’d thought enough?

Until they reached England?

She knew what she thought about that.

“He wants me—at least he didn’t deny that. Not that he could.” Not with his erection acting as an excellent barometer of his lustful thoughts. “And what,” she muttered, “was the point of raising the prospect of us marrying—as he undeniably did—if we’re not to proceed to make up our minds?”

She was sure she was in the right about his—their—intended direction; his subsequent actions supported her conclusion. He was insisting on giving her time to consider, and reconsider, before they took what he considered an irrevocable step. She, however, didn’t see that same step as irrevocable, not if it proved that they didn’t suit, but she would allow that, honorable gentleman that he was, he would deem it an unbreakable commitment.

All very well, but how was she supposed to make up her mind about whether they would suit, whether what might exist between them was of sufficient power and intriguing wonder to make her finally contemplate matrimony, if they didn’t take that step?

If they didn’t explore the connection between them further?

“Aargh!” She swung about and started to pace again. The frustration she felt was novel, not something she’d had to cope with before.

If she’d been able to revert to her previous self—the self that had been perfectly willing to hide behind a prim and
proper façade—she might have been able to go along with his conventional and no doubt proper decree. Unfortunately, she couldn’t. The Loretta who’d been willing to live within the constraints of proper reserve had died.

Slain by exposure, however brief, to passion and desire.

Thanks to Esme, she’d lost Loretta-the-demure’s clothes, and now, thanks to Rafe and her reaction to him, she’d lost Loretta-the-demure altogether.

Of course, Loretta-the-demure had always been a construct, a façade she’d fashioned for her own convenience, but she doubted she could resurrect even ghostly remains. Loretta-the-demure was gone. Forever. She had no patience with such restrictions, not when it came to this. To Rafe. To Rafe and her. Whatever Rafe-and-her proved to be.

“I have to find out, that’s all there is to it.” She swung around and headed for the door.

Crossing the suite’s parlor, she tapped on Esme’s bedchamber door. Hearing Esme’s voice bid her enter, she did, shutting the door behind her.

Propped up on a mound of pillows, her novel open in her hands, Esme arched an inquiring brow. “Yes, dear?”

“I have a problem and I need advice.” Loretta stalked to the armchair angled beside the bed and sat down.

“How wonderful.” Esme shut her book and smiled encouragingly. “I’m all ears. Do tell.”

Loretta cast her incorrigible relative a warning glance, but Esme’s eager response made it easier to broach the issue at hand. Esme and Richard had shared a long and loving union; if anyone knew the best ways for a Michelmarsh female to approach the matter of marriage, Esme did.

After gathering her thoughts, Loretta began, “Matters have reached a point where in his mind the next step, once taken, makes a wedding unavoidable. However, to
my mind, I cannot make a reasoned decision to marry until after that step, and possibly several after, have been taken.”

“Ah, yes.” To her credit, Esme kept her lips straight. “That
step. And yes, I can see the dilemma.” She paused, clearly considering. Her expression grew more serious as she did. “Sadly, I must advise that that dilemma is one you will need to deal with—you cannot avoid it. It arises because of the sort of man he is, and really, you wouldn’t want the dear boy without that streak of chivalrous loyalty. It’s a part of him you can’t and won’t want to excise, so you’ll have to find a way around it.”

“But how? I want to go forward and learn what I need to know, and he’s clinging to propriety.”

“Not so much to propriety as to what he believes to be the honorable path. But tell me this—what is it you need to learn from this next step?”

The question gave Loretta pause. She knew what she wanted, but did she know why? “I need to learn … whether what’s between us is powerful enough, potent enough, intriguing and mesmerizing enough to hold me. To keep my attention not just because it’s new and not something I’ve experienced before, but because it, and even more what feeds it, is something I crave and will keep craving … I suppose until death us do part.”

Esme regarded her shrewdly. “From any young lady that would be a good answer, but from a Michelmarsh it’s an excellent answer—indeed, exactly the right answer. And regardless of all social conventions and exhortations to the contrary, you are correct—you are following the right path. Michelmarsh females have never done well in marriages that failed to satisfy the criteria you described. You do not wish to know what happened to my aunt Gertrude—or to her husband. She was the last Michelmarsh female to defy our heritage and make a match that did not satisfy our family nature’s particular demands.”

Loretta nodded. “So I’m right. I thought as much.”

“Indeed, but before you go forging on, as I would encourage you to do—for what else can you do, after all?—I should point out there is one large and
unavoidable consequence
you might want to consider before you take that inevitable next step.”

“What consequence?”

“That wedding he spoke of? If you take the next step and all the criteria are satisfied, that wedding will come to pass. There will be no avoiding it. Once you take the next step and learn your truth, if the answer is positive you need to be prepared to follow that truth, to honor it to the end of your days. As I have, as your father did, as your sisters and brothers—even Robert—will. It’s not something that can be explained adequately to someone who has yet to feel it, but once your Michelmarsh heart is engaged, there will be no turning back.”

Esme grimaced. “That’s the brighter side of the coin. The darker side is that if you take your next step and the answer is negative, as soon as you realize you must pull back, pull away, and let him go. More, cut him off, however harsh and cold you have to be.” She paused, then went on, “The truth is, for a Michelmarsh, your next step is an all-or-nothing affair. If you win, you win it all. If you lose, you lose everything. You will not be able even to keep him as an acquaintance.”

Loretta frowned.

As if reading her thoughts, Esme continued, “Which means, dear Loretta, that quite aside from your own wants and needs, you have to consider his. You have to take his mission into account—weigh the risk of learning that he isn’t your destiny, and the effect that will have on any necessary interaction, in your scales.”

After a moment, Loretta said, “That’s not an inconsiderable risk, is it?”

“No. It’s not. A positive answer will strengthen you both. A negative answer will make life very awkward, and will distract and weaken him.”

Loretta growled, then pushed to her feet. “I’m not going to be able to just rush on and take that next step, am I?”

“Not if you want to do the best for him, no.”

Her late-night discussion with Esme had left her with too much to think about to countenance confronting Rafe then and there. She’d retreated to her room, to her own bed, and had tossed and turned for the rest of the night.

Now she sat in the carriage she’d approved and, wedged between Esme and the window, rocked and swayed as the miles slid by.

Rafe sat opposite, his long legs bracketing hers. Rose sat next to him, with Hassan beside her, filling the opposite seat. Gibson sat on the other side of Esme.

Esme was such an experienced traveler that she could sleep sitting up. Loretta felt a stab of jealousy. She was tired, yet could barely nod off; her rest was fitful at best. Despite the dreariness of the journey, she didn’t think Rafe or Hassan even dozed. As usual both remained alert and watchful.

Beyond the carriage, dark sentinels of the forest flashed by. Even when she roused herself enough to peer out, all she saw were trees. They paused only briefly to change horses, and for lunch at a village tavern, then rushed on, through the Black Forest.

Trees, and yet more trees.

With Rafe directly in her line of sight, her thoughts had little reason to wander. They remained fixed on him, circling the decision she had to make. To go forward now, or wait until later.

Much later, after they were back in England.

She appreciated all the points Esme had made, yet had to question whether waiting until she was once again under Robert and Catherine’s roof wouldn’t make matters significantly more difficult, especially with respect to taking that next step. Aside from all else, as she understood it her rejection of eight suitors had garnered her a certain notoriety, which would focus attention on her when she returned to London, and the last thing she would wish was to be dealing with Rafe, feeling her way
forward with him, all under the glare of the ton’s avid interest.

Yet when it came down to it, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—go
forward with him, couldn’t agree to any more formal connection, until she’d learned the answer to her questions, which she wouldn’t until she took that next step.

Her thoughts went round and round until she felt like screaming.

The alteration in tone of the wheels on the road came just in time. The carriage slowed, then swung onto a larger road, and at last the trees fell back, the forests ended, and the wide swath of a river appeared to their left.

“The Rhine.”

Rafe’s murmured confirmation registered. She looked out at gray water rippling under a brisk breeze. Saw the last leg of his mission looming. Minutes later, the roofs of Strasbourg and the spires of its cathedral appeared ahead.

She was going to have to do something to break their impasse. She was going to have to decide whether his immediate well-being as well as her own were worth risking in pursuit of something more powerful and infinitely more enduring.

She was going to have to decide just how wild, bold, and reckless she could be.

The only certainty she felt as the carriage slowed to cross a stone bridge and enter the town was that she was going to act. She wasn’t going to wait until England.

The Beau Rivage was a small inn catering to those who lived in the country surrounding the town and had business on the river. Half-timbered with a sound slate roof, it stood facing one of the numerous minor quays.

The innkeeper at Ulm, apprised of their requirements—a modest inn not in the town center but close to the shipping offices—had suggested the Beau Rivage. The instant he set foot inside, Rafe knew the man had steered them well.

Although the inn did not have suites, with the weather turning cold and sleety there were few other guests; it was easy to hire one entire corridor of rooms. Rafe took a quick look,
confirmed the quarters were both adequate and defendable, then returned to the carriage to hand Esme and Loretta down.

Esme peered at the building through the thickening river mist. “It’s rather small.”