The Stolen Bride (24 page)

He was staring at her breasts. “No.”

Eleanor realized he was admiring her and she felt a heady sense of allure. Her instinct was to raise the sheets, but she did no such thing. “Sean, I am not a child anymore. I do not need to be protected at every twist and turn. The inn is around the corner….”

“No.” He handed her an edge of the sheet, placing it over her breasts. “Ladies are modest,” he chastised.

She had to smile. “But we agreed long ago that I am not a lady.”

And he smiled in return as he slipped from the bed. “How could I forget?”

She ogled him while he was reaching for his clothes. He suddenly glanced at her while stepping into his breeches and he blushed. “Ladies are not so bold.”

She shrugged. “You are beautiful…. Why can’t I stare? Men stare at women all the time.”

He sighed and reached for his shirt, which was now dry. “You can’t…it’s improper…you know that.”

“I hate being proper,” she declared, meaning it.

He went still, a faraway look coming to his eyes.

Eleanor had a vague recollection of a different time and place, when he was young and she was younger still. “Sean?”

He slowly turned, his gaze drifting over her and from the look in his eyes, she knew he was seeing her as a child in braids, not as the woman he had just taken to bed. Then his gaze sharpened. “You are a lady…just an unconventional one. Do not ever forget it.”

“I pretend to be a lady when I have to—which is most of the time,” she rebutted. “You know I despise wearing dresses and having tea and going to balls. I haven’t even learned to dance properly.”

He glanced at her, amused. “Only you…would dare to be so honest.”

“Sean, I see that dimple,” she said, and it was the truth.

He straightened in surprise, his soft smile vanishing.

She wondered if he was determined to grieve. She slid from the bed. “Sean…seeing you smile is wonderful.”

His eyes widened. “You should get dressed.” As he spoke, his cheeks turned red.

She was so comfortable with him that she hadn’t even realized she was nude. She jerked the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her. “I think you must know every inch of my body intimately by now.”

His color increased.

“But I don’t mind,” she exclaimed.

He seemed displeased now. “Elle, I hope you only act so bold…with me. No one else could understand… or accept it.”

She folded her arms. “Oh—you mean, like Sinclair?” And her heart raced with anxiety.

He lifted his chin. “Him, too.”

Had someone tied a rope between them, the tension could not have suddenly been greater. But Sean turned away. Eleanor seized his arm. The words slipped out. “You don’t really expect me to return to him? Not after all we have shared this day?”

He pulled away, buttoning his shirt and clearly refusing to answer her.

He still thought to send her back to Sinclair. “You spent the afternoon making love to me!” she cried in genuine shock.

He was angry. “We already discussed this.”

“There was no discussion and that was yesterday. There was an order, a directive—it was your decision, not mine.”

“Why do we have to debate again?” he demanded.

“Because it was one thing to have made a foolish mistake once—a meaningless and foolish one—but it’s another to willfully deceive a good and honest man when we both deliberately chose to be lovers!” She was furious.

He glanced sidelong at her. “Nothing has changed…. Sinclair is
protection
for you.” He started for the door.

She was so stunned with disbelief she just stood there, staring. Then she said, “I don’t need protection from the British—but you will never believe that, will you?”

He faced her. “I was an animal…in a cage. It was madness…it was hell. This time, I will hang. And you? Do you want to spend your life in the Tower? Or do you prefer a privileged existence as Lady Sinclair?”

She wasn’t furious now; she was determined to understand him. “You are not being rational. No one is going to lock me in the Tower. Is this irrational fear somehow connected to what happened to Michael?”

He refused to answer her.

“I can’t leave your bed and then take vows with Peter,” she said honestly. “You must see that it would be despicable.”

He cursed. “I knew it was a mistake. I have already arranged for you to return home tomorrow. And we agreed you would pretend innocence with Sinclair—you promised.”

“I promised no such thing,” she gasped. “And our one-sided debate was before you spent an entire afternoon enjoying my favors,” she added.

He held up his hand. “Don’t,” he warned.

“Don’t what? Don’t insist that you do the honorable thing? I already made that mistake, didn’t I? And you already refused to marry me,” she said with some bitterness. And no matter what she knew and understood, his failure to want to take her as a wife genuinely hurt. “I’m not a fool. I would hardly play that card again.”

“Then what game are you playing?” His eyes flashed angrily.

She swallowed hard. “I can’t leave you like this, Sean. I meant what I said before. If you go to America alone, there will be no one to take care of you. You said no one can help, but that’s not true. I can help. I will help. I am your other half.” And somehow, she smiled through her tears.

He was ashen. “I would die,” he said, so low his words were almost inaudible, “before placing you in that kind of danger.”

They were at a terrible impasse; he refused to listen to her and she could not understand his fears. “And I would die before leaving you now—this way.”

“No!” He was incredulous. “When will you understand? It’s not safe. I should not have returned for you…you would be married now. Safe and married to Sinclair! Damn it, Elle!”

She was ill that he could be so adamant after what they had shared. “You might want to send me home—but into the arms of another man? I don’t believe it! You want to be with me! You
need
me, Sean!” she cried.

“I need no one!” he shouted. “I need air, water, food…you need
me
, not the other way, and you always have!”

She recoiled.

“So cease insisting otherwise, damn it! I never asked for this…love! Never, not once, ever!” He was on a furious tirade. “If things were different, maybe we could be together…. If things were different, I could be honorable and make you my wife. But you are engaged…as it should be! Forget me! Forget this!” He gestured wildly at the bed. “You need to marry Sinclair, not me—not a traitor who is bound for the gallows…. And damn it…if you are having my child…he will raise my son as a bloody Englishman! He will never suffer indignation…outrage…injustice… anything!” he cried out, smashing the wine bottle, now empty, from the counter.

Eleanor flinched. How the truth hurt. “You’re right. I have always needed you and loved you. And
you…what? You hated my affection, my trust, my loyalty? Just like you hated my lovemaking a moment ago?”

He was panting hard. “Not fair.”

“No, this isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that you left me four years ago, missing you terribly, without a word—perhaps while you were enjoying a liaison with someone else. It is not fair that you came home now, and swept me back off my feet on my wedding day! It is not fair that you took me to bed, but refuse to be a gentleman and do what is right. No, it’s not fair, Sean.”

He stared.

She wet her lips. She could not stop now. “You have hurt me so much since you left and now again, since you came home. Sean, do you realize that you never hurt me, not genuinely, in all those years when we were growing up together? You were my hero.”

“Stop,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “Maybe you didn’t need an annoying brat spying on you all the time—or a young woman who gladly rubbed her hands raw to help you rebuild your home. In fact, I am sure you would have had a pleasant boyhood growing up without me, just as I am sure you could have rebuilt Askeaton without me.”

“I’m sorry,” he offered.

“No! You had your say and now I have mine. You
need
me. You are suffering from the pain of Michael’s death, and the two years spent in prison, and maybe even more than that—I don’t know. You need me as you have never needed anyone or anything before. You need me
more
than air, food and water!”

He reached out to grasp the back of a chair.

“Do you know what else I realized this afternoon?”

He didn’t move, his gaze unwavering.

“I love you with all of my heart—not just the way you were, but the way you are now.”

He closed his eyes tightly. “Then you are mad,” he said.

“Yes, you are probably right. But today I have seen the truth. You are running from Michael’s murder. So be it. But you can’t run from me. I want to be your wife. And if I have to, I will wait—for as long as it takes.”

He inhaled, turning white. “No.”

And she began to tremble. “I am not going home to marry Sinclair, Sean.”

“I said
no!
” he roared. “When will you understand?
I married
Peg
. I am not marrying you!”

E
LEANOR KNEW
she had misheard. It was simply impossible that he had married another woman. But her certainty wavered as she stared at his flushed face and angry eyes. Her heart began to pound so swiftly she felt faint and dizzy. She had misheard, hadn’t she? Or was she in the throes of a nightmare?

She gripped the back of a chair. The room tilted wildly. “You’re not married,” she choked.

He seized her arm, steadying her. His gaze was searching and their eyes met. “Peg is dead.”

The room was a blur. He was a blur. How could this be happening? Her entire life, she had followed him, chased him, laughed at him, with him; there had been thousands of moments that they had shared. They had swum together, raced their horses, dived off cliffs. There had been card games, hide-and-seek, tug-of-war. And every time she had been in trouble, he had appeared, miraculously, to rescue and save
her. The day she had fallen off her pony while following the hunting party, she had been lost and scared. When she had gotten caught in some weeds in the lake, she had been terrified. It hadn’t mattered—Sean had always been there.

She had loved him from the first moment she had set eyes on him and she had never stopped loving him, not even after he had so callously taken her innocence.

He had married someone else
.

“Here.” Sean suddenly handed her a mug of water. “Take a sip. You’ll feel better.”

She ignored the mug.
How could he have married
someone else?
“Why?” She managed to breathe, her heart suddenly numb, her lips as frozen. She became frightfully cold, in her bones.

“She’s dead, Elle. Because of me…they’re both dead,” he said harshly. “You should sit down.”

Somehow she was seated. Her face was wet and she realized that she was crying. She tried to focus on him but he was a haze now, his handsome features blurred. “How could you marry someone else?” she heard someone ask—then realized it was her.

He gripped her hand. “It wasn’t like that,” he begged tersely. “I didn’t love her.”

Was he lying now? She simply could not understand his relationship with this other woman—a
woman he had decided to marry. She just looked at him, in acute grief and disbelief.

“Why are you staring?” he cried. “It’s been
four
years! So much has happened in the interim! You were marrying Sinclair…I married Peg, and now it’s
over
.”

She couldn’t comprehend him at all now. All she could understand was that he had been married to another woman. He had left her to marry someone else. It was the single greatest betrayal of her life. If he had felt the way that she did, that they belonged together no matter the circumstance, he would have never been able to bring himself to marry someone else. Marriage was
forever
. He had chosen to be with another woman for the rest of his life.

And it did not matter that she was deceased. His choice, his decision and his betrayal was what mattered now.

“How long?” she choked out, wiping at her tears. “How long were you married?”

He shook his head. “Not long. Please don’t cry.”

She somehow met his pale silver eyes. “But you were supposed to marry me,” she heard herself whisper.

He stiffened. “I’ll go get supper,” he said decisively. He strode from the room, and then turned. “Bolt the door.”

Eleanor did not move. The refrain haunted her
now.
He had married a woman named Peg
. Her mind turned cruel, intent on torture. She saw an unbearably beautiful woman, Irish, of course, perhaps another earl’s daughter. She would be blond and short, because Sean didn’t like tall women, and almost too beautiful to even look upon. She had probably been like Lady Blanche Harrington, the woman Tyrell had almost married. Blond, beautiful, perfect—impossibly elegant and gracious to a fault. She saw Sean with the woman, his wife, laughing, adoring, smitten.

She tried to remind herself that he had said that he hadn’t loved her. She started to weep. She knew Sean well enough, especially the way he had been before his incarceration, to know that he had cared for this woman. He had cared, perhaps deeply—perhaps the way he currently cared about her, Eleanor.

There was more than passion, Sean!

You don’t know anything…you were innocent until
the other night!

Eleanor wept harder. She was a fool. He had used her, obviously, the way he used women like Kate. She had been naive enough to think his lovemaking was just that. Had he made love to Peg with the same explosive desire? Surely he had—after all, he had chosen to marry her! The truth was that she was no different from Kate or any other housemaid or
farmer’s daughter—because she wasn’t Peg, because he hadn’t waited for her, because he hadn’t cared enough to take her hand in marriage, because he had chosen to spend his life with someone else.

She hated the other woman, God she did. It was wrong—that woman was dead. And then she realized that it was Sean she hated.

Eleanor could not breathe. She began to choke for lack of air. But it didn’t matter—she didn’t care if she lived or died. She only knew one thing. She had to get away from Sean. He was a traitor, in every sense of the word. He had been a traitor to her, to them.

She was never going to forgive him.

She stumbled down the narrow stairs, too late realizing she remained barefoot. Weeping, she did not care. Outside a hundred stars were twinkling in the night sky and the far end of the street was lit with a single cast-iron gas lamp. Eleanor ran.

It didn’t matter where she went. It only mattered that she run as hard and as fast as she could go—it only mattered that she escape her own heart and all the pain consuming her.

And then she turned a corner and saw three British soldiers swaggering up the street. They seemed boisterous and drunk. Eleanor ducked into a doorway, where she hid.

Sometime later, the soldiers long since gone, it began to rain.

Eleanor did not notice. She was too cold to notice the ice in her heart and soul.

H
E WAS ILL.
He walked slowly up the stairs to the room over the cobbler’s, unable to stop recalling Eleanor’s shock and grief. But she had overreacted to the fact that he had been married, considering that Peg was dead. She had acted as if he had betrayed her. But he had been in shock over the massacre in Kilvore when he had taken his wedding vows. There had been no time to really think it through. The burden of grief had been overwhelming. And he had never, not once in their relationship, indicated that he might love her the way she loved him.

Promise me you will return for me?

I promise
.

He stiffened. He had known when he had left her standing at Askeaton’s front gates that she had taken his promise in a literal manner, when it had not been made that way. Was this entirely his fault?

The first thing he had done upon returning to Adare was to spy on her, confront her, and then make love to her. And yesterday he had given in to his wildest desires, spending the afternoon with her. He
shouldn’t have touched her even once. Of course she would have expectations, because she did not understand, really, the danger she was in. Any woman gently born and bred would be expecting marriage from him—but Elle also expected his love, when he had nothing in him to give to anyone, not even her.

“D
O YOU,
S
EAN
O’N
EILL,
take this woman to be your
lawful wedded wife? To cherish and to hold, in
sickness and in health, until death do you part?
”

Sean had been ill then, too. He had stood beside
Peg in the small village chapel wearing the
smith’s
dark Sunday suit; Peg was clad in a simple white
dress and a borrowed wedding veil. He had looked
uneasily at Peg, aware of performing a monstrous
duty, suddenly feeling crushed. She had been crying
with joy over the impending union, but her tears were
also those of grief, for the deaths of her father and
friends. For an interminable moment, he had not
been able to speak his vows. Peg’s image had
wavered, her blue eyes turning dark and amber, and
Elle had stared expectantly at him. He had been
stricken, for the first time in months, thinking of Elle
and home, becoming vaguely aware that everything
was wrong. But Peg had whispered, “Sean?” And in
panic, he had faced her again, then glanced at
Michael, who was waiting eagerly for him to marry
his mother. Some in the congregation were weeping,
still grieving for the loss of brothers and cousins,
fathers and sons in the massacre earlier in the week.
He had to protect Michael and Peg. Grimly, he faced
the priest.
“
I do
.”

S
EAN JERKED,
realizing he stood in the dark, dank stairwell, lost in the past. He hadn’t thought about his wedding day even once since then; he’d actually forgotten it—or buried it with his memories of that entire week. Peg and Michael were gone; Elle was not. And now he had to admit to himself that he hadn’t told her about his marriage because he had known it would upset her; he could add that to the long list of his crimes against her, his sins.

He started up the stairs. He had not been able to protect his wife and son, but he would not fail Elle. Until she was safe at Adare, with Sinclair, he had no other cause. And he would not think about the other man taking her to wife and to bed.

He hesitated halfway up the dark, narrow stairs. Leaning on the wall, he began to shake. What was happening to him? How had he returned home only to become so caught up in Elle’s life—to become so caught up with her? His life had turned cold and
black the night Peg and Michael died. It was too late, but now, standing in the dark, aching and alone, he thought of Elle and the stairwell became warm and bright with light. But then, Elle had been the sunshine in his life. When she smiled, he was warmed impossibly, and not just in his body, but in his heart, his soul.

And if he dared to remember being with her in bed, if he dared to remember being in her arms, he might have to admit that she was far more than sunlight and peace—she was his siren call. But it was so terribly dangerous to do so. If he thought about sharing a bed with her, he might explode—and he might decide not to return her to her waiting groom.

But now, he did not know how to best apologize to her and he did not dare attempt to console her. Sean continued up the stairs. Before he reached the top step, he saw the light spilling into the hall and he froze. The front door was wide open.

He dropped the bag and ran to the room. He took one look inside, already knowing she was gone. The flat was empty. He cried out, smashing his fist against the wall.
Where did she think to go?
Panic began, mingling with raw fear. Peg’s faded black-and-white image floated before him in the room, then it was followed by the coldest and most frightening blue-eyed stare he had ever seen. He started to sweat.

He reminded himself that if Reed still had a command in Ireland, he could be anywhere in the country or to the north, near Drogheda. The man was cavalry, his regiment stationed as needed or upon request. He reminded himself that, while Reed had become the monster in his dreams, the man had undoubtedly forgotten Sean’s very existence years ago. Reed was never going to touch or hurt Elle.

He turned to go, then whirled back again. Instantly he saw the lace-up boots he’d gotten her.

She was in the city, but she was barefoot. He was distressed as he charged down the stairs, but he reminded himself that was fortunate, for she would not get very far that way.

A few moments later, Sean was mounted and trotting down the street. He could cover much more territory astride than on foot. But Eleanor could be anywhere.

Did she think to walk home?

Knowing her, she might.

He had calmed some of his panic, but a very genuine fear for her safety remained. A beautiful woman, alone on the public roads, dressed as a man, was sure to attract attention from every unsavory sort, even if she eluded the soldiers. Sean spurred Saphyr on.

D
AWN WAS SPREADING
a pale gray blush across the harbor just southeast of the city. Sean sat the stud on the low rise of a hill, too frightened for Elle to be exhausted. He had quickly realized that if she chose to remain in the city and hide, he would never find her. He had decided to ride north toward Limerick, but she had been nowhere to be seen on the main roadway. He had given up when he realized that she could not have gone that far on foot.

Of course, he did not know if she remained on foot. If she had somehow gained transportation, then she might be on her way home. He should be relieved, but there would be no relief until he knew she had arrived safely at Adare.

He needed his wits now, but they were failing him. Where was she? Was she all right? What if she had been accosted, assaulted, worse? Had she been apprehended by troops? He was on the verge of panic, making it hard to think.

Then one thought filled his mind. Cliff and his brother intended to help him, regardless of his wishes. There was a harbor just below him, where the ferries ran between Cobh and Cork. Sean stared down at the gulf of water that lay between the harbor and the island, and the shoreline of Cobh’s jumbled buildings. He had purchased a spyglass the previous
night and now, he began to study the panorama below.

A dozen dinghies and sloops were at berth in the harbor, a few fishing boats already putting out to sea. The only large ship in their midst was the HMS
Gallatine
, an incongruous sight, as the naval base was on the island’s other side in Cobh. He lifted his spyglass, for a wider-ranging look—and smiled.

A frigate, far larger, more heavily gunned and quite ominous, her hull painted red and black, rode her anchor some meters away, all sails reefed, the standing rigging vast.

Only Cliff had a frigate painted in such bold colors. If he was not mistaken, that was
The Fair
Lady
, oh yes.