Gail Eastwood (16 page)

“If you think so,” the earl agreed reluctantly. He decided to let the twins ride ahead of him, where he could keep an eye on Cranford’s sister.

They managed to continue on for several more miles before Gillian’s rigid pose began to give way. The girl might be plucky and stubborn, Brinton thought, but she was obviously suffering. He spurred his horse to catch up to Gilbey.

“Look at your sister,” he said tersely.

Gillian looked round at that moment to see what was going on behind her. Her pinched, white face and slumping posture clearly betrayed what she had not been willing to admit.

“Tell her my horse picked up a stone, or whatever you must,” Brinton told Gilbey. “We can stop by that grove of trees just ahead.” He let the viscount go ahead to rejoin his sister, and watched the hurried conference between the two. He held his horse to a very slow walk.

The Kentwells waited for him under the trees without dismounting.

“Your horse doesn’t act as though he’d picked up a stone,” Gillian said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I am not certain that he has,” the earl responded half truthfully. “I would like to check him now, before there is a problem.” He swung down from his saddle, realizing for the first time how tired he felt himself. He began appropriate motions to check his horse’s feet, but he kept his eye on the girl. Was she going to stay in her saddle?

Brinton heard the creak of leather as Gilbey dismounted, and only then did Gillian follow suit. She slid from her horse with a graceful, fluid motion that did not stop when her feet touched the ground. As he watched, her slight form continued its descent into a small, crumpled heap beside her horse.

Brinton was beside her before her brother could even move. She lay absolutely still. “What the devil is the matter with her?” he cried.

There was a note in the earl’s voice that made Gilbey look sharply at the other man. He saw no trace of anger there, however. If anything, Brinton’s face showed anguished concern—even panic, Gilbey thought—in contrast to his sharp words. And that, in itself, Gilbey found extremely interesting. He had assumed that nothing under the sun could cause panic in the coolheaded Earl of Brinton. He smiled.

“She has fainted, man, that’s all. She’ll come round in a minute.”

“Fainted! That’s ‘all.’ Your brotherly concern is overwhelming,” the earl said dryly. He gathered Gillian into his strong arms and carried her small, limp form to the grass away from the horses. “What in God’s name would cause this? Is it exhaustion?”

Brinton knelt beside Gillian and raised her head gently so that it rested against him. Gilbey watched as the earl brushed Gillian’s hair back from her face. Brinton looked up at him when he didn’t answer immediately, and Gilbey was shocked at the depth of emotion he saw in the earl’s eyes.

“She needs food, my lord,” he said, stumbling into formal address in the awkwardness of the moment. As much as he had been wondering how things stood between Brinton and his sister, Gilbey had not expected such a sudden and dramatic revelation of the state of Brinton’s heart. The man was clearly in love with Gillian. Gilbey felt as embarrassed as if he had walked in on them in bed. “I should have recognized the signs when she started acting oddly,” he added quickly. “The exhaustion just makes it worse.”

“We must still be at least five miles from Carlisle,” said Brinton, looking thoroughly distraught. “What should we do?”

Gilbey could hardly believe that the great, resourceful earl was asking
him
what to do. He was extraordinarily pleased that he did, in fact, have an answer. Recalling what Brinton had said just that morning about the secret of command, Gilbey straightened his shoulders and looked confidently at the earl.

“We have to get some food into her. If you will stay here with her, I shall go back to the last farmhouse we passed and obtain something for her.” He looked at his sister cradled against the earl and felt his confidence falter for just a moment. “She should be coming out of it. This has happened before, but it has never lasted for long.”

“I’ll stay right here with her,” Brinton reassured him. “I am certain you are right. The exhaustion has hit her hard along with this. We should have stopped to eat in Penrith. After all, what has any of us eaten since Hest Bank this morning? Nothing but tea and biscuits at Shap.”

Gilbey turned to gather the reins of his horse, nodding his head in agreement. He felt very much to blame, but there was something comforting about having someone else share the fault. He realized that he not only admired Brinton, he trusted him. As he mounted and turned his horse to go back up the road, he pondered what he had discovered. Brinton loved his sister. But how did Gillie feel about Brinton?

***

As Gilbey’s horse pounded up the road, Brinton settled himself on the flower-strewn grass and gently laid Gillian’s head in his lap. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, feeling the softness of her skin in the hollow beneath her cheekbone. He closed his eyes for a moment as his hand lingered there.

He had known anguish before; he had held comrades in his arms as the life bled out of them. He was feeling anguish now, but the pain was different—there was a tender sweetness mixed into it that made it almost unbearable. It was not an anguish born of worry, for he knew that Gillian would quickly recover. It was the heartrending pain of holding the woman he loved and knowing that he could not have her.

He could not stop himself from touching her. He searched her face for signs of awakening, but the long sweep of her lashes remained still against her cheeks. His fingers roamed, exploring the silky texture of her hair and tracing the graceful curves of her lips. It took all of his strength not to gather her up against his body in a crushing embrace. He forced himself to be content with looking and touching, savoring this moment with her like a doomed man at his last meal.

“Miss Gillian Kentwell,” he said, smiling down at her, his voice a ragged, accusing whisper. “It seems, after all, that it is you who has robbed me, although you will never know it! I have lost the confidence I had in my future. I do not know, now, how I am going to live my life without you in it.”

Chapter Sixteen

Consciousness returned to Gillian with an inevitable headache and an equally sharp realization that her cheek was resting against someone’s thigh.
Not Gilbey’s
, she thought, struggling to focus her mind. A faint, familiar male scent gave her the answer she sought.
Brinton’s
. Shocked at the intimacy of their position, she sat up abruptly.

The sudden movement was a mistake. Her head reeled, and she very nearly fainted again. A gentle pressure forced her back until she found she was resting against the earl again, but at least now her head was against his chest. She opened her mouth to speak, only to find a finger placed lightly against her lips.

“Stay still a moment, little one.” Brinton’s deep voice was infinitely soft and very, very close to her ear. His fingertip traced her lips tenderly, then stopped.

A tremor ran through Gillian. She knew he had felt it when his arm tightened slightly around her. She hoped he would attribute it to her upset state. She closed her eyes and let her head lean against the comforting, warm solidity of his body.

“You fainted when you got down from your horse,” he explained quietly. “Your brother has gone to get you some food.”

She opened her eyes again. “Gilbey?” She was amazed to discover she had not missed him.

“Have you any other?” The earl was smiling at her.

“No.” She answered his smile with a little frown and made another attempt to sit up. His arm held her back without the slightest apparent effort.

“Are you certain that you are feeling strong enough to stir?” he asked, “You may rest here until your brother comes if you wish. I promise to behave myself.”

“I am feeling better,” she lied. He might very well behave himself, but that would not prevent her from having her own reactions to their close contact. She was quite sure that she could manage to sit up. He did not need to know that she felt as weak as a newborn and too shaky to stand. As he released her, she pulled away and repositioned herself on the grass at a safer distance from him.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Gillian stared pointedly up the road, watching for her brother. Finally Brinton cleared his throat and spoke.

“Even if you rode astride when you were at home, Gillian, you cannot be accustomed to staying in the saddle for so many hours on end. We have covered more than forty miles this way today, which is admirable. But I think we will have to procure a carriage when we get to Carlisle.”

Gillian did not know how to respond. She did not like to admit how welcome the prospect of a carriage sounded to her. She was not even certain she would be able to remount her horse to finish the last few miles to Carlisle.

“How much farther to the border?” she asked hopefully.

“Less than twenty miles, I believe. I think we can reach Gretna Green before dark.”

She sighed. “What of our finances, Lord Brinton? Did you not say there could be no more carriages? And what of Orcutt? Do you think we are still enough ahead of him to allow ourselves the luxury of slower travel?” She forced herself to turn and look at him.

He smiled. She wished he would not, for that smile softened the aristocratic contours of his face, and deepened the little lines by the corners of his eyes. It made him look just the way she wanted to remember him, and that caused her pain. The morning would come all too soon.

“You still do not feel that you could call me Rafferty?” he asked wistfully.

She shook her head.

“You wound me, but I suppose I shall recover,” he sighed. He plucked a few tiny white flowers from the grass and began to toy with them.

“I have come to the conclusion that I must obtain some funds in Carlisle if there is any bank still open or any solicitor whom I could approach. We will have to retrieve our luggage, also. We will just try to accomplish these errands as quickly as we can, and keep our eyes open. Orcutt is still behind us, but there is no way of knowing how far.”

Gilbey returned a few minutes later, and as Gillian ate, Brinton quickly outlined his plan. Gillian found it difficult to choke down the bread and cheese her brother had brought her, for despite her hunger, her throat was tight. Finally, when she was finished, the men collected the horses. Gilbey waited beside hers to help her mount.

With Brinton’s assistance, she got to her feet. Try as she might, however, she could not get her legs to do what she wanted. Her knees were bowed, and her muscles refused to support her weight. Her bones seemed to have turned to butter. By her third step she would have sunk right to the ground, had not Brinton slipped his arm around her waist. Then the earl slid his other arm under her knees and lifted her.

He carried her toward Gilbey as if she weighed nothing. “Cranford, if you will mount, I’ll put her up in front of you. She cannot ride another mile. We shall have to lead her horse.”

So Gillian rode into Carlisle sitting sideways in front of her brother. The feel of Brinton’s hands on her waist as he had put her up lingered in her mind and on her body; his hands had felt as strong and warm as ever, but they had been shaking. She did not know why.

In Carlisle Brinton’s plan was executed with military preciseness and efficiency. The twins used the last of Brinton’s funds to hire a cabriolet and an extra mount, and managed to locate the coaching inn where their luggage had indeed arrived on the coach from Preston. They reclaimed the bags and proceeded to wait for the earl in an alley off English Street, watching for signs of Orcutt or his fellow agent.

At length, Brinton found them. He patted the pocket of his coat, nodding his head. “This should see us there in style and get me home again as well,” he said.

Gillian winced guiltily. Not once had she considered that after traveling well out of his way to escort them, the earl would still have his return trip to make alone. Her heart, already heavy, seemed to sink her even further into the squabs. She remained exceedingly quiet as they proceeded toward Scotland.

***

The goal Gillian had struggled so hard to reach struck her as ironically unimpressive. The landscape near the border consisted of wild, flat, barren moors and peat-brown streams that appeared nearly black in the waning daylight. The border itself was the narrow River Sark, crossed by a small, single-arched bridge with a tollbooth on the far side, soon left behind.

As the travelers approached the yard of the infamous Gretna Hall Hotel a half mile beyond, the lamps were just beginning to be lit. A porter with a lantern hurried to meet them, along with an ostler and two stable boys. Once they had taken charge of the animals and luggage, Brinton gathered Gillian into his arms, not caring what impression her unseemly appearance might make on the people around them, and ignoring her small squeak of protest.

“We shall require a private suite with two sleeping rooms, dinner, and three hot baths,” he said in his most commanding voice. “I hope we are not too late in the day?” The effect of his request was quite satisfactory. The porter, nodding the whole while, ushered them into the building, summoned several servants, and issued a quick flurry of orders. He then turned to Brinton with an extra nod at the small figure in his arms.

“Would you be needing a ‘blacksmith,’ sir? I did not realize at first that you had a young lady. It’s not everyone who brings their own witness along, of course,” he added, looking behind them at Gilbey, “unless, uh, that is . . . which one is the bridegroom?”

Gilbey’s face had turned the brightest red Brinton had ever seen it. “Neither,” the young viscount growled. “The young lady is my sister.”

The earl spoke up quickly before the trio found themselves in a different sort of misunderstanding. “That’s right,” he added, “and I am their uncle. We are on our way to Dumfries. We would like to go right up to our rooms, please. I will come down again to sign the register.” He decided to overlook the porter’s impertinence rather than attract any further attention. He raised an eyebrow at Gilbey to warn him not to say more, then followed a chambermaid up the stairs. He asked her to send a young woman to attend to Gillian in her bath.

Later, after all three had bathed, changed, and eaten a lavish dinner, Gillian retired, leaving Brinton and Gilbey to their own company and the bottle of port they had ordered to follow their meal.

“I have never seen my sister quite so done in,” Gilbey said, accepting a glass from the earl. “She was every bit as wobbly as a new foal.”

Brinton smiled at the analogy. “That she was. However, I am certain that she will be fully recovered in the morning. How are you faring, Cranford? It has been a difficult journey for you—first your knee, then your ribs.”

“I’m better now, after soaking.” A serious expression came over Gilbey’s face. “I was going to say, we are indebted to you for hiring the carriage. In the morning I suspect both Gillie and I will be nearly as glad to have it as we were this evening. That strikes me as a singularly inadequate thing to say, however. We are indebted to you for ever so much more.”

“You needn’t say anything,” Rafferty replied. “In fact, I would rather you did not.”

Gilbey’s gratitude, especially here, of all places, made the earl feel like a fraud. The porter’s impertinent assumptions when he realized that Gillian was female had only served to remind Brinton of his own assumptions when he had first met the twins. Archie would never have made the ridiculous bet with him if he had not first planted the idea of Gretna Green in Archie’s head. Without the added impetus of the wager, Brinton was not certain that he would have gotten himself involved with the young runaways at all beyond that first night.

“I have no wish to embarrass you,” the young viscount insisted. “It’s just that, well, I am sorry that we must part in the morning. I have never spent six days so completely in the company of anyone, other than my sister, nor have I ever faced such odd and challenging circumstances and obstacles.” He paused awkwardly, looking down at the glass of port he held suspended between his knees. “Without you we would have been lost. I will gladly repay you the funds you have expended on us, but we can never repay the friendship you have extended. Have I at least a small hope that when I am back in Devonshire, our paths might cross occasionally, if you visit your uncle?”

Brinton swallowed, his throat suddenly thick. Cranford’s earnestness touched him deeply, but he knew that he could no longer predict that part of his future. “I cannot say, Cranford,” he replied honestly. “If my role in what we have done should ever become known, it is highly unlikely that I would find myself in Devonshire. The scandal would make me quite persona non grata in any place where my uncle has connections.”

He hesitated, looking at the lad’s bowed head. How much should he say? Should he confess his feelings for the viscount’s sister? “I would venture to say that, in the six days we have traveled together, we have all come to know one another quite well. I shall miss both you and your sister.”

Gilbey had been staring into his glass, swirling the contents around the sides. Now he looked up suddenly, meeting Brinton’s eyes. The earl sighed and plunged ahead.

“As I believe you have guessed, my feelings for your sister have gradually surpassed those of mere friendship. I would be less than candid with you, Cranford, if I did not admit that those feelings are a great source of torment for me. Consider the potential for scandal that already exists from my limited involvement with the pair of you. How much greater would such a scandal be if my involvement were anything deeper? It is unthinkable to risk exposing her to such a thing.

“Of even greater concern, however, is the immutable fact that I would never be able to offer your sister the kind of life she has built her hopes and dreams around. How could I love her and deny her the future she desires? Clearly, I cannot. So I think it best that she should never know how I feel. Because I know you also value her happiness, I have faith in you to keep my confidence.”

Brinton drained his glass. “Will you have another?” he asked Gilbey on his way to the bottle.

Gillian’s twin shook his head. “I’ve had enough.”

“How about to save me from drinking all the rest myself?”

“All right, one more,” Cranford relented, holding up his glass.

***

By morning Brinton had decided to continue with the Kentwells as far as their aunt’s. He had wrestled with his choice for a good part of the night, weighing the painful cost of prolonging his departure against the pain of not knowing if Gillian had safely reached her final destination. He owed what little sleep he had gotten to the quantity of port he had consumed, and he faced the day with a cheerful front to hide both headache and heartache.

“I realized I could not go on my merry way without knowing the final outcome of your journey,” he explained to Gilbey and Gillian at breakfast. “It would be too much like reading a long, involved book, only to discover the last pages are missing.”

Gilbey openly expressed his pleasure, but Gillian was uncharacteristically quiet. She had emerged from her chamber transformed back into the stylish young lady who had dined at the farm near Shrewsbury. In fact, Rafferty noted, her blue-gray walking dress had been pressed and mended, and she had taken the time to thread matching ribbons through her hair.

“It is an improvement over the rumpled muslin I wore at dinner, is it not?” she had asked them anxiously.

“You look every inch respectable this morning, Gillie,” responded her brother. “The innkeeper’s staff will never recognize you.”

“Thank you so much,” she answered dryly. “I am sure that’s just as well. But I am hoping that perhaps Aunt Elizabeth will. People do say I somewhat resemble Mama.”

“You far surpass mere respectability,” said the earl. “Your mother must have been a very beautiful woman.”

Gillian smiled, but without her usual radiance. It was not surprising, Brinton thought. With so much depending upon the reception she would receive at her aunt’s, she undoubtedly felt nervous. He wondered if the twins had given any thought at all to what they would do if their aunt turned them away. It was that nagging question, more than anything else, that had convinced him to stay the extra day.