Folly's Reward (13 page)

For God’s sake!
The life of a five-year-old hangs by a slender enough thread.
He must find the child as soon as possible.

Someone knocked at the door. Lord Belham turned in considerable annoyance.

“Come!”

* * *

The slow ripple of water slapped against the narrow boat, gently rocking Prudence where she sat on her cushions outside the cabin with the mending. One of Sam’s shirts lay in her lap.

They had stopped somewhere on the Oxford Canal, with the green fields and budding trees of England spreading away on both sides of the water.

Prudence was barely aware that their slow progress had halted, or that the air was heavy with the promise of the oncoming evening. The needle lay still in her fingers. She was agonizing over whether she had done the right thing.

If Hal carried treasonous messages, someone in government had to be told, didn’t they? Prudence had a brother in His Majesty’s Navy. Angus had written her long letters about the fight against the French. Even though there was an uneasy truce with Napoleon right now, her brother’s very life might depend upon her acting with resolution.

What if the message contained information about Napoleon’s plans, even an invasion of the south coast, or a sudden strike against the allies in Belgium? Angus would expect her to follow the call of patriotic duty, whatever her personal feelings about it might be.

So before she could change her mind, Prudence had folded the paper with its occult symbols and odd collection of letters and numbers inside a letter to Admiral Rafter in London. Angus had mentioned him once, and she did not know the name of any other person in government.

As soon as
The White Lady
tied up that night, Prudence had slipped ashore and posted her missive.

And felt like a snail for not telling Hal what she had done.

For if she had shown him the coded message, it might have jogged his memory of who he was and why he had been traveling to Scotland, and cleared him of the agony she had witnessed all those nights ago, when he had kissed her.

But what if he remembered that he was a French spy? And what if she had been so wanton in the arms of a traitor to his country?

A slow, deep burn flooded up her neck as she remembered it. And remember it she did, every day. Hal had promised to teach her something, but what she had learned had woken a restless longing that would leave her never content again.

Plain, prim, and proper Miss Prudence Drake, douce Scots governess, had discovered that she was no better than a strumpet.

It made it very hard to meet his eyes in casual conversation, or act with the affection that a wife should, so that Sam would not become even more suspicious. Especially when Hal had greeted her across the breakfast table the next morning with dark circles under his eyes.

“Whatever ails you this morning, lad?” Sam asked brightly. “Spent the night with the nightmare riding your conscience?”

Hal looked back at him and laughed. “Bad dreams, sir? Indeed, my dreams are of beautiful women. Why would you think they would rob me of sleep?”

Had Hal had gone straight from her arms to dream again about the mysterious Helena?

Did it make it even worse that Hal was spending most of his time now with Bobby, teaching the boy to ride and swim?

Every day Bobby rode the great horses, learning a good seat and an easy balance. Each evening the lithe man and the fragile child dropped together into the canal, and Bobby shrieked with delight in the silver sprays of water splashed up by their games. Bobby was already able to float by himself, and hang onto the side of the narrow boat and kick.

Meanwhile, whenever they must be together, Hal was gentle with her, and teasing, and patient to a fault, but Prudence could not forget that she had felt such a burning passion in his arms.

She had let a man awaken her—like Sleeping Beauty—with a kiss, and then she had stolen his coded paper and betrayed him.

It made her hot with misery, as if the blazing sun and the open barge left her with no place to hide.

Prudence closed her eyes and dropped her head over Sam’s torn shirt, knowing her face would soon be as red as the painted poppies on the cabin wall.

“You would seem to have caught too much sun, angel,” that cultured voice said with its enchanting edge of humor. “You should wear your bonnet when England decides to surprise us with such a warm day.”

She looked up to find that Hal had climbed onto the small deck and was smiling down at her.

He dropped down on his haunches beside her.

“I had hoped I was forgiven,” he said quietly. “It has been three days.”

Prudence deliberately took the way out. They had not shared a personal conversation since that eventful night, and she was determined to keep it that way.

“We are stopped,” she said, looking away across the fields. “Why?”

“We are almost to Banbury, where there is a major boatyard. The toll gate is locked at eight o’clock sharp.”

“Where shall we stop for the night, then?”

“Here. Sam has taken the boys with him to take care of the horses. There is stabling at a small inn just around the next bend, but the berths there are all filled. We shall stay tied up along the canal bank, as we have done every night since I kissed you and you kissed me back. And once again I shall sleep on the bank, rolled in a blanket under the hedge like a gypsy, lest I ravish you in your sleep.”

So he would not let her escape.

Prudence stood up and looked after the retreating figures of their skipper and the two boys. They had unharnessed the horses and were leading them away.

She had been left alone on the narrow boat with Hal, while she dreamed away the moments during which she could have avoided it.

A kingfisher dived with a sudden flash of blue into the water, startling her.

“If you were a gentleman you would not talk of what happened,” she said.

“We must talk about it, angel. Sam thinks I’ve been beating you. He told me he would not keep such a villain aboard, if I did not win back your smiles. Was it so very dreadful to kiss me?”

Prudence whirled about to face him as the kingfisher rose from the water, a small silver fish in its beak.

“You are a villain. A rake and a villain!”

Hal stepped up onto the cargo and lay down, casually stretching out his long legs.

“Is that why you blush like a rose whenever you think of me, angel?”

“I’m not blushing. It is hot, and the sun is too strong, that is all. I think I shall suffocate if it does not cool off soon.”

“Then you should come for a swim in the canal. It would calm all your passions and soothe your wrath.”

The kingfisher perched on a branch overhanging the water. In one quick movement the bird turned the small fish in its beak and swallowed it.

Something close to panic reverberated in her heart. “I can’t swim.”

He supported his cheek on one hand, his weight on his elbow. Dark hair curled over his fingertips.

“But the water is cool and refreshing and kind. It’s very clear and clean here. I could support you, and you could bathe away all of the hot, sticky antagonism you have felt toward me for the last several days, and the heat of the sun that has poisoned your bones, and the difficulty of not washing as much as you have wanted. Slide into the water with me, angel. It feels lovely.”

“I told you I can’t swim. It’s completely out of the question.”

“Why? Don’t you trust me?”

If only he weren’t so beautiful, looking into her eyes with that searching harebell gaze!

“After what happened? I know I can’t trust you.”

“Because I kissed you and you liked it? For God’s sake, I should have thought, if there’s one thing that I proved then, it’s that you can trust me. In spite of all your accusations and my own fears, I am not a rake.”

He could reach out a hand and catch her to him, if he wanted. He could kiss her again, there on the small deck with the sun beating down, and she would not be able to stop him.

“How on earth do you arrive at that conclusion?”

“Because, my dear Miss Drake, a rake would not have stopped as I did, when I did, and thus you would no longer be in possession of your virtue.”

She said nothing as he sat up and looked away into the willows, the sun casting a strong shadow under his jaw.

“I wanted to go on,” he said fiercely. “I wanted it with every fiber of my being. You are an enchantment to my senses. But I did not—even though you would have let me. If, after that, you think that you cannot trust me, then I’d very much like to know what is your definition of trust.”

“Do you trust me?” she said miserably.

He looked down at her and smiled. “Absolutely.”

She felt the enormous weight of her betrayal like a collar of iron. “Why?”

His harebell eyes watched her with nothing but concern. “Because you are open and honorable and kind, and would do nothing underhanded or cruel.”

“You cannot know that!”

Hal leaned down and caught her hand. “Yes, I can. I have watched you day after day. I know you. I would trust you with my life, angel. For I know I have already trusted you with my heart.”

Prudence swallowed hard. Her face flamed. Her pulse hammered uncomfortably in her throat, as if it would choke her.

“This is madness.”

He turned her fingers over in his and looked at them. Then he raised them to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles, courteously, gently, yet with a thrumming of underlying tension that shook her to the core.

“Yes, I know it is,” he said. “I did not plan to tell you, and I demand that you not answer me, but I’m in love with you. I’m damned sorry.”

Prudence snatched back her hand. She felt lost, devoid of direction.

“Why sorry?”

He ran both hands back through his black hair.

“Because I cannot ask you to marry me when I don’t know who I am. I should not in honor have declared myself, for you are left without any possible response. Therefore, don’t reply! Just know that I care for you, that I shan’t let any harm befall you, and that you can trust me. Isn’t that good enough?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say nothing.” He smiled with that warm, irrepressible humor, but a dark shadow lay beneath it. “Perhaps many years from now, when you are sitting at your hearth with that bold fellow with the double-barreled gun beside you, and your children snug in their beds upstairs, you will tell him about me and laugh a little over it. ‘I kissed a fellow who came from the sea,’ you will say, ‘for he was a madman and I was sorry for him. It seemed to be a bit of a risk, but indeed it was no risk at all.’”

“How can you say there was no risk?”

“Because you were never in danger.”

“I wasn’t a person to know much about risk or danger, until I met you.”

He broke into sudden laughter, as if truly delighted.

“Thus says the lady who flees Scotland alone with her five-year-old pupil, though a sinister one-eyed man tails her, and a marquess wants the lad dead. Yet you think of yourself as so staid, don’t you? For God’s sake, you have a natural talent to discover and devour the world, angel.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Seize the day! This is your chance to try the delights of new ventures, before the real world crowds back in with its constricting demands and expectations of propriety. We have another day, right now, and have wasted three. Let us seize this one! What else have you always longed to do, other than really kiss a man, but never dared, Miss Drake?”

“I don’t know. Please, don’t do this! I don’t want to try new things.”

“But new things are God’s gift to our dreary days. And it is devilish warm here, trapped beneath these trees. Let’s swim, Miss Drake! You can trust me, and you can also trust the water. There’s no danger.”

“I should be afraid.”

“You said you had suffered from too much sun. Come, this beneficent liquid will cool you, and it’s not even deep. You can trust me. I have proved it, haven’t I?”

Prudence closed her eyes. Oh, dear Lord! When she had been guilty of the most dreadful perfidy! Although she had not told Admiral Rafter where she and Hal were heading, it was possible that she had put Hal in mortal danger just by sending his coded note to London.

Perhaps she deserved to be punished? Without question, she must demonstrate to Hal that she trusted him—with her life, if necessary. She must make amends for what she had done. Because, after all, whoever he was, she loved him with a desperation that was threatening to destroy her.

“How can I go in the water in my gown?” she asked, ashamed that her voice was close to a whisper.

“It doesn’t matter. It will dry.”

Hal dropped down to stand beside her. In a few rapid movements he stripped off his shirt and boots, and stood before her naked from the waist up—magnificent, beautiful, and far too inviting.

“Come!” He held out his hands.

Prudence put her fingers into his, and he helped her to sit on the rail.

In absolute silence, he knelt at her feet and began to unbutton her boots. It was disturbingly intimate. She reached down a hand to stop him, and did it herself.

Hal smiled once, as if in understanding, and dropped over the rail into the water.

She reached up under her skirts to peel off her stockings. She dropped her little jacket next to her boots on the deck, and stood, clothed only in her thin muslin dress, her arms bare to the bright air, and watched him.

He ducked and turned over in the water like a seal, then he held up his hands to her.

“Don’t jump. Just sit on the rail and slide into the canal. I will catch you.”

The water brushed over her bare feet like cool, damp silk. Hal reached up both hands to catch her by the waist, and eased her into the canal beside him.

It was colder than she expected. She gasped as an icy clutch of fear made her grasp at his shoulders. Tears sprang to her eyes, purely from panic.

“It’s all right, angel. Hold onto me as much as you like, but I won’t let you go.”

His strong arm held her firmly around her waist. His legs moved rhythmically in the water. She clasped both hands about his neck. His firm, muscled shoulders felt slick and cool against her bare arms. Her skirts swirled up around her legs. She bit hard at her lip to prevent herself from crying out.