The Stolen Bride (10 page)

“Now you are changing the subject.” She swallowed.

“We can continue to rehash the past tonight. I had better return to the house before I am truly missed.”

His face closed off even more. “It’s not the best of ideas…. I had better stay in the woods…. I can travel by night.”

She was alarmed. “No!” She rushed to him. “Sean, there is so much to discuss! So much has happened while you were gone! Don’t you want to hear about Tyrell’s marriage? And Gallant is a champion. Do you remember him? He was a gawky foal when you left! Sean—you can bathe. In hot, sudsy water. I’ve already arranged for a meal—there’s pheasant, ham and cod, salmon and roasted guinea hen. There’s a Burgundy wine you will love!”

He was pale. “You think to bribe me?”

“If that is what it takes,” she said grimly.

“I am tempted…but my answer is no. I am leaving…and I am not coming back.”

Very carefully, she grasped his hand. He started; she ignored it. She had never been more determined. “Did you mean what you said earlier? Have you really been celibate for two years?” she asked softly.

He jerked away. “What the hell?”

She felt thick and heavy inside of her body now. “I think you were fourteen when you had your first mistress. I know—I spied.”

His face was rigid. “You would know…you were spying…as always.”

“And from that moment on, there were so many light skirts.” She was hoarse. Her pulse had slowed. “Two years? I can’t imagine you being without a lover for so long.” She had stepped outside of herself. Somehow, she was a seductress with the most ancient allure of all.

He was flushing now and he was also rigid. “Why are you doing this?”

“How did you manage? Did you dream about a lover?” she whispered, her cheeks hot. “At night, could you feel a woman’s touch, her soft body?”

He just stared at her, but his silver eyes burned.

“Maybe it was my body that you dreamed of, my touch,” she murmured.

He flinched.

“You know how I feel about you,” she whispered.

“So come to the house tonight, Sean, because I will take care of you.”

And she knew she had succeeded, because his hunger was there between them, huge and rising.

S
EAN HAD THE SAME DREAM
every night. He’d had the same dream so many times that he knew he was dreaming the instant it began, but that did not decrease his panic, his fear, his horror. Paralyzed, he could only watch the events of that bloody night unfold, helpless to prevent the massacre of the villagers and the murders of his wife and her son.

Peg smiled at him, but the question was always
there in her faded eyes: Why don’t you love me, Sean?

He wanted to go to her and beg her forgiveness
and tell her that he did love her, even though it would
have been a lie. Circumstance had dictated that he
marry her and they had both known it.

“When will you give me my boat back?” Michael
appeared, his skin oddly gray, his hair, once crimson,
almost black.

Sean had punished him that night for being rude to
his mother by taking the carved toy away. It had been
a gift from his father, a sailor who had disappeared at
sea. The small toy remained in his pocket now, even
as Sean slept. He was not given a chance to reply.

The mob of angry villagers appeared and he knew
he had to stop them from marching up the road to
Lord
Darby’s
estate. He knew what would happen if
they appeared at those iron front gates. He knew it
because he had been there, not just three years ago
on that bloody night, but as a child, the day his own
father had led a similar mob against the British. He
tried to tell them that no good could come of this but
his voice wasn’t working—he couldn’t get the words
out. His panic escalated. He tried to seize the arm of
Boyle,
Peg’s
father, but he didn’t seem to notice. He
tried to seize
Flynn
, but he vanished before his very
eyes and the estate was burning, the soldiers were
there, and he was there, his dagger in the gut of a
redcoat, a boy really, and then the boy looked at him,
meeting his regard, the question there unspoken,
why? And when Sean laid him down he was looking
up into the blazing blue eyes of a British officer.
Colonel Reed was staring at him with hatred.

Sean understood what Reed intended. He tried to
chase him, but the officer was galloping away and he
could not catch up. The days passed by him and he
was still running madly to the cottage where he was
hiding his family, and even as he ran, he knew what
he would find and he was sick with dread and desperation.
Too late, he was there, but the house was
an inferno, too late, he screamed for them both, but
Michael was nowhere to be found and when he found
Peg, he held her as she lay dying
….

Sean cried out, sitting up, sweat pouring down his body.

For one moment, he was somewhere else, in the midlands in a small, starving village just a few miles from Kilvore. For one moment, there was smoke and fire, shouts and retreating hoofbeats and he choked, sobbing over his dying wife and their lost child. He gasped for air.

Sanity returned, and with it, reason and reality. He was not back in Kilvore. He was not beside the burning inferno where his wife had died. He shoved to his feet. He was standing alone in the woods. The horse he had stolen yesterday in Cork was grazing some short distance away, hobbled so he could not wander.

Sean was trembling violently and he knew he could not stop it. He could only wait for the tremors to pass. He walked to the edge of the glade, knelt and vomited.

He sat back on his heels, closing his eyes, recalling that he was at Adare. His home—the home where he had been raised from the time he was eight years
old—was on the other side of the woods. In that huge house was the earl, whom he loved as a father, his mother, his brother and stepbrothers.

He stood. Elle was there, too.

But she wasn’t Elle anymore. His gut tightened, his heart lurched. The panic came, and it was so huge that he couldn’t even try to deny it to himself.

She had become a beautiful woman, a woman he barely recognized. But she was still stubborn and fearless, even if the skinny child had vanished. He could insist to himself that it was natural for him, in his celibate state, to be responding to her body, her beauty. But he hadn’t really noticed any of the women he’d passed on the streets in Cork. Even the cobbler’s pretty daughter had evinced only a vague and passing interest.

He had meant every word when he had told her that she should be afraid of him. He wanted her to fear him, his lust and the British who were after him—he wanted to chase her away. He hated the way she looked at him. He hated that she seemed to love him still, perhaps more so than ever. But she had refused to be frightened and she did not seem to be running away. Worse, she had offered him her
bed
.

Maybe he was the one who was afraid of her.

She had offered him her body
.

But he would never accept her offer, even though
the mere thought of it increased his arousal. He was not going up to the house tonight, because her offer came with strings. He could try to convince himself that Elle was gone, but she wasn’t. She still worshipped him, and he saw her love every time he looked into her eyes. She might be prepared to give him her body, but she wanted his heart in return.

And that was never going to happen.

Even though he was certain Sean O’Neill was dead and buried, some part of him remained, because he couldn’t use her, even if he desperately wanted to. And it was only in part because she now belonged to another man. He did not want to hurt her more than he already had.

Besides, he was leaving and she was marrying the other man. God, he hated Sinclair! Yet he had known from the moment he was old enough to understand the politics of dynasties that Elle would marry a title and, if possible, a fortune. And he felt as if he might explode out of his skin. He had the frantic urge to stop the wedding. Worse, his body raged to accept her damnable offer and take her to bed. He could not understand himself anymore.

Instead, Sean fought the inexplicable anger. It was a very good match, in spite of Sinclair being an Englishman. He was going to America anyway. And
there was no possible way that she was coming with him. Because they would chase him and if he were caught and she was there, she might suffer the same fate as Peg.

He knelt and vomited again.

Where had that notion come from? He wondered, feeling dizzy now as he leaned against a tree. He wasn’t taking Elle with him because he wasn’t rotten enough to make her a mistress and he would never take another wife. He wasn’t taking Elle with him because she deserved her titled heir and his fortune and a future filled with peace.

I am coming with you
.

I want to go hunting, too!

Sean tensed. A memory he did not want to entertain threatened him.

I
N BRAIDS AND DRESSED
for riding, she was glaring and
stomped her foot. He sighed. He had known this
would happen if she ever learned that they were going
hunting for two days. He had begged Tyrell not to
mention their hunting expedition to her. This particular
week he hadn’t been able to shake her from his
trail for more than a few minutes. “You’re nine years
old and you are a girl, even if you seem to wish you
were a boy. You’re not coming with us,” he said firmly.

“Yes, I am,” she said, stamping her foot again.
“And so what if I wish I were a boy? Being a girl is
stupid! I hate dolls. I like hunting! I like fishing! I like
worms! I’m not too young— Father took you hunting
when you were nine!”

“How would you know? You were a baby then.”
Annoyed, he turned and started to leave his room.
She followed.

“I asked him, and he told me.”

He stopped in his tracks and she crashed into his
back. “Has anyone ever told you that you are too
clever for your own good? You’re not coming, Elle.
If you’re not careful, you might turn into a boy—and
then you will die an old maid!”

She began to cry. “I hate being a girl! I hope I turn
into a boy so I can be just like you.”

There was no reply to make to that. Worse, he was
feeling sorry for her and guilty for being cruel, so he
rolled his eyes and left. Amazingly, a few hours later,
as the hunting party set out, there was no sign of Elle.
He wondered if it was possible that she had given up,
but he highly doubted it. Was she sulking in her
room? Was she still crying? His heart stirred. Her
tears were usually a matter of theatrics, but he hated
it when she cried anyway.

A few hours later, they were many miles from
Adare. They had stopped to rest, water the horses and
take some refreshments. Sean had actually forgotten
about Elle as Cliff was regaling them with the story
of his latest conquest—the lady being half a dozen
years his senior and the bride of one of Father’s
elderly friends. But then Elle’s fat red pony wandered
into the makeshift camp and he was without his rider.

Fear briefly paralyzed him.

They split up to search for her. He was afflicted
with images of her lying on the trail, her neck
broken—one of the most common causes of death.
This was his fault, he kept thinking, and he prayed
that she was all right. If anything dire had happened
to her he would never forgive himself…

He found her walking up the trail, looking dirty
and unhappy, but unhurt. When she saw him, her
face lit like a harbor beacon and she cried out,
running toward him, holding her arms out.

He leaped from his charger and ran to her,
hugging her hard. “What were you thinking?” he
cried, almost angry. Then, cupping her cheek, “Are
you all right?”

She nodded, her eyes huge and serious. “Sean, I
fell asleep!”

He could not believe she had fallen asleep on her
pony. He pulled her back into his embrace, holding
her tightly there. “In an hour it will be dark, and
there are mountain lions and wolves out here,” he
said thickly. “Elle, promise me you will never be so
foolish again.”

She regarded him seriously. “I only wanted to
come with you.”

S
EAN SAT DOWN
at the base of a tree. He wasn’t fifteen anymore and she wasn’t nine. Once, she had manipulated him as easily as he could whistle and snap his fingers for his dog. Those days were over. No one could manipulate him now, much less Elle—especially because she wasn’t that annoying child anymore.

You know how I feel about you. Come to the house
tonight and I will take care of you
.

He stood, instantly and painfully aroused, choking on the air. She had been indulged far too greatly as a child. He suddenly wished to box her ears, as if that act might set her straight. But she hadn’t ever tried to be a lady while growing up and clearly, nothing had changed. Convention did not interest her and she chose to ignore propriety. No wonder Sinclair was smitten.

He covered his face with his hands. Someone had to rule her with an iron hand. Once, that someone
would have been him. But she had a father and three brothers to take up the slack. One of them, or possibly even Devlin, had to speak seriously with her. No woman of her station and rank should ever proposition a man so boldly. Such speech was simply dangerous.

What had she been thinking?

You know how I feel
….

Come to the house tonight
….

Sean looked at his mount. He should be getting on his horse and riding as rapidly as possible from Adare.

He was not going up to the house tonight.

Even if that meant he was never seeing her again.

“R
EX
,” C
LIFF SAID
. He paused on the threshold of a small library. Rex had his back to him, staring at the empty fireplace. He was clearly disturbed and brooding.

But Rex turned instantly at the sound of his voice, smiling, and he limped toward Cliff. They embraced, exchanging solid slaps on the back. “How are you?” Cliff asked. He hadn’t been home in over a year and when he had, Rex had not been at Adare, although he had seen him at Harmon House in London the previous winter.

“I am well. And you look well,” Rex said, looking him up and down. “Even the fine clothes cannot
disguise the fact that you have become a heathen, Cliff.”

Cliff laughed. He knew his hair was too long but otherwise, he had not a clue as to why people thought he looked like a barbarian or a golden-skinned Moor. No one knew that he lived with a knife in his belt, a stiletto up his sleeve and a dagger in his boot—even with a suit, he never wore shoes. “I think you have become fanciful. What passes in Cornwall?”

Rex shook his head. “Absolutely nothing.”

Cliff walked to a bar cart where he poured two bourbons. “Then why spend most of your life there? I should go mad from the boredom.”

“I have been making improvements to the estate. It is my living,” Rex said, accepting the drink.

Cliff knew that he and Rex were as different as night and day. Still, he could not understand why anyone would want to seclude themselves on a Cornish estate in the middle of nowhere. “I hope you have a beautiful mistress warming your bed.”

“I have willing maids,” Rex said. “I can’t afford a beauty.”

Cliff’s smile faded. He couldn’t imagine bothering with a housemaid. Last night, he had espied Lady Barton playing whist and had managed to
include himself in the game when her card partner had decided to retire. A quick flirtation had produced exactly the result he desired. If a woman were not extremely beautiful, he was not at all interested. Maybe he should procure a beautiful courtesan for his brother. It would surely help him pass the time.