Twice Tempted by a Rogue (12 page)

“No,” she said quickly. “God, no.” Of all the horrid notions … no wonder he couldn’t bear to look at her. “Rhys, it wasn’t like that. I had no idea. You must believe me.”

With a rough sigh, he heaved the rocks aside. First one, then the other. “I believe you. Just had to ask.”

Before he could turn away, she caught his wrist. “Stop for a moment. Please?”

He stopped.

The wind gusted, tangling her skirt around her legs and forcing her to raise her voice. “I had no idea they’d do this last night, but I suspected they’d try something soon. You must understand, they’re concerned. I’m concerned, too. I heard what you told me earlier, about needing to build something here. And I understand, more than you could know. To you, this rebuilding plan is some kind of redemption, but to everyone in the village … it’s a threat.”

“A threat? How can it be a threat?”

“We’ve built a livelihood here, just barely. Mainly due to the inn, and Darryl’s little business touring the travelers, and …”

“And Gideon Myles’s smuggling ring.”

Her voice failed her. He knew about Gideon?

“Yes, I know. Myles and I had a not-quite-friendly chat just before he left town last week. Just how involved are you with that business?”

“I’m not—” She swallowed hard. What use was there denying it? “Not very.”

He gave her a queer look as he backed away, returning to his pile of stones. “That’s what I’d hoped. But this morning made me wonder.”

A queasy feeling churned her innards. She recognized it as guilt. And why should she feel guilty, simply because she’d done whatever she could to ensure the village’s survival?

“Rhys, try to understand. Our livelihood as a village … it’s a delicate balance, and you’re threatening to topple it.”

“Topple it? I want to rebuild it, on something more solid than ghost stories and smuggled brandy. My ancestors supported this village for generations.”

“Yes, but
this
generation doesn’t understand. There’s already a betting pool down at the tavern. The men are all laying wagers on how long it’ll take you to leave.”

“Oh, really?” His voice went dark. “What date is your money on?”

“I’m not a gambler,” she said, hoping a little smile would lighten the mood. “You’ve been gone for so long. It’s hard for people to believe you’re serious when you say you’re here to stay.”

“Well, I don’t know what else I can do to convince
people”
—his pointed look told her he meant the one particular person standing before him—“that I’m truly here to stay. Other than to stay. And keep building up these stones, no matter how many times they knock them down.”

“You truly mean that? No matter what they do, you’ll remain here on the moor?”

“Like a damned boulder.” An ironic smile quirked his lips. He ran a hand over his hair, then wiped his brow with his sleeve. “Let’s put it this way. It’s not like I have something better to do.”

Was that meant to reassure her? It didn’t. Perhaps it helped convince her he wasn’t leaving anytime soon, but it certainly didn’t make her any more inclined to marry him.

Marry me, Meredith. It’s not like I have something better to do
.

“Just the same,” he said, “I’d rather not rebuild this foundation a dozen times. I suppose I’ll start camping out here to guard it. You’ve need of your guest rooms anyway.”

“Out here? At night?”

“I’m a soldier. I’ve camped in worse conditions than these.” He looked around the rubble. “Much worse.”

Her gut told her he wasn’t exaggerating. But even if he
could
endure it, she hated the thought of him staying out here in the cold when she had warm beds and hot food at the inn. Not to mention, the open moor was dangerous at night. Dark, damp, perilous. In protecting the cottage, he’d only be endangering himself. Next time Gideon’s supporters got up to their mischief, the house wouldn’t be their target. Rhys would.

“There has to be another way,” she said.

“Perhaps. If there is, I’m certain you’ll think of it. You’re cleverer than I am.”

And with that he went back to work, lifting stone after stone. He began to arrange some of them into a line.

With a defeated sigh, Meredith sat down on one of the largest boulders. She didn’t feel up to walking back just yet. She was fatigued and frustrated and boiling angry on Rhys’s behalf. Those Symmonds boys had better have cleared out by the time she returned, or she’d be breaking bottles over both their heads.

For the moment, she simply sat and watched Rhys, and the controlled wrath in his movements as he hefted and slung the rocks from one place to the other. Beneath his shirt, his muscles bulged and flexed. His face was a mask of grim determination. When stone cracked against stone, Meredith felt the echo reverberate in her spine, but he didn’t even flinch.

What must it be like, to possess that kind of power? If only she had the strength to build walls with her own two hands … She’d have already built her new guest wing for the inn.

An idea began to form in her mind.

“If you’re building with cob,” she said thoughtfully, “there’s a great deal of waiting involved. You have to build it in rises, you know. So the walls don’t buckle or crack. Just a few feet of height at a time, and you’ll need to let the walls settle between each rise. A week, at least.”

“I’m certain I’ll find ways to keep myself busy hereabouts.”

“Perhaps. But the ideal would be to have two buildings going up at the same time. While one rests, you add a layer of cob to the other. And the reverse.”

He propped one boot on a stone and looked up at her. “Are you saying I should build two cottages?”

“No.” She leaned forward, suddenly excited at the brilliance of the scheme. “I’m saying we should become partners.”

One eyebrow rose. “Isn’t that what I’ve been suggesting?”

“Business partners, not …” Her hands fluttered. “Just hear me out.”

Purposely mute, he made an expansive gesture of invitation.

“You want to build your cottage, but you don’t have laborers. I want to add on to my inn, but I lack the funds. We’ll work together and build both at the same time.” She rose from her stone perch and began pacing back and forth. “I’ll convince the men to work for us, and I’ll provide all their meals during construction. You’ll pay the wages and material costs. Once they’ve completed a rise on one building, they’ll switch to the other while it settles and cures.”

He scratched his neck and peered toward the horizon. “What’s the advantage to me, financing an addition to the inn?”

“It’s a gesture of good will.” She ceased pacing and went to stand before him. “Don’t you see? The villagers are afraid you’re going to disrupt their lives with these plans to rebuild Nethermoor Hall, and then leave them in worse straits than ever. If they see the improvements to the inn occurring at the same time … well, they won’t worry so much. No matter what happens with you and your house, Buckleigh-in-the-Moor will have come out for the better. And if the two of us are working together, they’ll stop fighting you every step of the way.”

“They?” He cocked his head and looked her up and down. “Am I truly to do this because ‘they’ won’t worry so much? Or are we talking about you and your own concerns?”

She inhaled slowly. “I … I don’t know. Both, I suppose. Does it matter?”

“Maybe not.” He studied the grit under his fingernails.

“Please, Rhys.” The wind whipped a strand of hair into her mouth, and she drew it back with one hand. “Either way, it’s going to take you just as long to build a cottage. But if you’ll allow me, I think I can persuade the local men”—and Gideon too, if she played it just right—“to give you a chance.”

“You really think they’ll take work with me?”

“If I approach them about it? Yes. This village is more than those dozen brutes who camp out in the tavern each night. There are several cottagers in the area scraping out a living from the moor, supporting families, many of whom have been here since your father’s day. They’d jump at an offer of work, if it’s presented favorably.”

He released a deep sigh. “Very well, then. You have me convinced. We’re partners.”

“Business
partners.”

He didn’t reply—just gave her a knowing half-smile and stuck his big, powerful hand into the gap between them.

Meredith did the same, and they shook hands in a brisk, very businesslike manner. And then, for an extended moment, neither one of them let go.

“Walk with me,” she heard herself say, in an embarrassingly wistful tone. When his chin ducked in surprise, she released his hand and continued, “I mean … I’ll see about assembling a workforce tomorrow. For today, why don’t you rest? Walk back down to the village with me. We’ll take the long way, along the stream. It’s a fine day for a walk, and it will give us a chance to talk.” She added swiftly, “About the construction.”

“What of the ponies?”

“I’ll send Darryl for them later. They’ll be fine.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he wiped his hands on his breeches and picked up his coat where it lay nearby. Slinging it over his arm, he said, “All right, then. Lead the way.”

She set an unhurried pace across the ridge, and he followed.

“Mind the path,” she told him, guiding him around the edge of the bog. He’d been away so long, she worried he might forget where to step. On the surface, it merely looked like a patch of damp land, dotted with scrubby patches of heather. However, beneath the unthreatening wreath of loam lay a spring—the source of the stream that flowed down these slopes and straight through the heart of Buckleigh-in-the-Moor. Peat and muck covered the spring two yards deep, and this bog was the sad end of many an unsuspecting creature with the bad fortune to misstep and become mired.

As they turned down the slope, the waters gathered and funneled into a steady trickle, draining the layers of surrounding peat. The ground was firm and safer now, and they walked two abreast as they followed the winding, ever-widening stream.

From his easy gait, Meredith could sense that much of the angry tension in his body had dissipated. Good. Back at the cottage site, he’d been so tightly wound and obviously hurting, she’d been afraid for him. Or afraid for the rocks.

“It’s been years since I walked this way,” she said. “But it looks the same as it ever did. Has it changed any, in your view?”

“The landscape? No.” He gave her a playful look. “But my companion’s a damn sight lovelier than before.”

Her cheeks blazed with a blush so fierce not even the cool breeze off the stream could soothe it. To say her adolescence was awkward rather understated the matter, but still … it burned her pride to know he remembered. “I know, I know. Back then, I was all freckles and bone.”

He laughed. “You were, but that’s not what I meant. Even freckles and bone, I’m certain you were lovelier than my horse.”

“Oh! Different companion. Yes, I see.” To disguise her embarrassment, she forced a laugh. “But that was a beautiful horse. My father still reminisces about that gelding. Finest beast he ever kept, he says.”

Rhys lapsed into silence.

Meredith breathed with relief. It seemed her secret was safe, then. She’d followed him along this route many times as a girl, always taking great pains to remain hidden from view. It hadn’t been too difficult—she’d been a reedy little thing with wild hair, always dressed in faded homespun. She’d likely blended right into the moor like a clump of gorse.

Even as they followed the path, she measured the distance by the old landmarks that had been her hiding places. The boulder standing sentinel atop a crest, the bowl-shaped depression where the river took a sharp curve, the twisted hawthorn tree surrounded by heather in its full violet bloom.

Skylarks spiraled in the sky above them. The further they walked, the closer they drew to a destination familiar to them both: the waterfall that tumbled into a steep gorge, gathering in a secluded pool beneath. That pool had been Rhys’s escape in his youth, during his breaks from school. Meredith’s escape, too, though little he knew it. She’d followed him many a summer afternoon, watching in secret while he stripped bare and plunged into the cool, clear water. At the time, the pull had been youthful infatuation and simple curiosity. But she’d grown into a woman since those days. As they drew nearer to that hidden pool, true desire swirled and eddied in her blood.