I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (18 page)

Her stomach fell into her knees. “But— But—”

“Will you?” His face looked perfectly sincere. “Dearest Eleanor?”

“Mr. Prince.” She dropped her eyes. Withdrew her hand. “You go too fast.”

“And yet here you have asked me to kiss you. Which of us is more hasty?”

“A kiss is not marriage.” Then she would have been married at sixteen, and deliriously happy about it. A pathetic, lovesick puppy.

“When I want that kiss as much as I do,” he said in a peculiarly thick voice, “it recommends itself to marriage.”

She had not expected this ardency. She turned away. “I don’t—”

He grasped her arm and turned her about to face him. “I have seen you looking at me as though you wonder what to make of me. What have you decided, Eleanor? I’ve grown impatient to know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mean to test me, to test my honor with this request? If I assent, will it damn me in your estimation?”

“No. I would not play such a game with a man’s sentiments.” Yet she was playing it with her own. She felt nothing remarkable with him and yet she
wanted
to. She wanted to shatter the hold Taliesin had on her desire. “I promise you.”

Mr. Prince drew her close to him by the taut cord of her arm. “Then I assent. Willingly. Ecstatically.” He bent his head and passed his lips lightly over hers. Then he leaned in and, placing his hand on her waist, he kissed her.

Cool and curious. Interested. Assessing. Thoughts instead of feelings. Analysis rather than passion.

Destiny could not feel like this
.

He looked into her eyes. “Tell me you were as moved by that as I,” he said in a strained voice.

Was she to laugh or cry or tell him the truth? The mere brush of Taliesin’s gaze affected her more profoundly than the caress of this man’s lips.

“Thank you for obliging me,” she whispered weakly. “I know I should not have asked it.” Perhaps the gossips whose words wounded Arabella were right. Perhaps their mother had been a woman of ill repute and Eleanor shared that blood. Asking one man to kiss her while wanting another seemed excellent evidence for it. Or perhaps she was simply like Guinevere, longing for Lancelot when she already had Arthur.

“That isn’t what I thought to hear. God, Eleanor.” He speared his fingers through his hair. His hand grasped her waist tighter. “Perhaps I should be clearer about my feelings.” His mouth connected with hers and his arm rounded her shoulders.

Embraced, surrounded, drawn in. Desired.

His lips were soft, no longer tentative, coaxing now. Pleasing. He tasted of brandy and smelled of some subtle and masculine cologne. She curved her fingers around his shoulder. Closed her eyes. Felt the pressure of his lips, and the response inside her, the prickling of awareness in her belly. The warmth. Then in her breasts.

She gasped her surprise and broke from him. Her face turned away, hot.

“Eleanor.” He was breathing hard. “You felt it. Tell me you felt it.”

“I—” The truth jousted with denial upon her tongue. She forced her eyes to his. “I am confused.”

Triumph crossed his face like a parade, but only for an instant. “Then I am taught to hope.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she said honestly.

He gripped the mantel, as though to hold himself still. “I will not push you. I will wait for you to decide your mind. You need only time.”

Her mind needed no time. It assessed his handsome features, his eyes vibrant with sincerity, her pleasure in his company, and she knew. Here was what her family hoped for her. Opportunity she would not have again. A good man who would give her a good life.

“I should go to bed.” She went to the door.

She paused on the threshold. His face showed what her heart felt: desperation. Desperation to understand something that could not be understood, she feared. He truly cared for her, enough to offer marriage. Perhaps she could learn to feel something for him. Perhaps if she married him she would learn the truth of her family. Perhaps she would finally learn who she was.

“Good night, Robin,” she said, and went to her room. She’d had little sleep the night before. Nothing sensible was ever pondered effectively while exhausted. She needn’t make any decisions about her future tonight. After the party tomorrow, she would ask Taliesin to take her home as soon as he could tear himself away from his house and his new, deeply friendly neighbors. Then from St. Petroc she would write to Arabella and Luc and ask for advice about what action to take next. Perhaps they could contact the sugar company, or the shipping company. They might even place an advertisement in the London papers: “FOUND: Three lost daughters shipwrecked on the
Lady Voyager
in 1795. One of them happens to be a duchess. Inquire at Combe Castle.”

She wasn’t a fool. Robin Prince’s financial security was dependent upon his grandfather’s crotchety humor. He was impressed with her sisters’ connections. Other gentlemen she’d met at Arabella’s and Ravenna’s weddings had been friendly too. Perhaps they imagined the Duke of Lycombe planned to settle a dowry upon his spinster sister-in-law.

But Robin’s admiration seemed sincere, his eagerness to make her feel for him so honest. She could not reject such a man.

Chapter 15

The Truth

T
he day of the party at Kitharan dawned cheerfully clear. When Eleanor went down to breakfast she learned that Fanny had already departed.

Fidgety, she spent an hour riding and two hours reading, and all morning avoiding Robin.

At two o’clock Betsy fastened her into a gown of shimmering golden apricot silk sewn with beads across the bodice that Arabella had managed to tuck into the bottom of her traveling trunk. Affixing a triple-tiered pearl choker about her neck—also Arabella’s secret gift—Betsy glowered at her in the mirror.

“Now, miss, you mustn’t be so forward with
that
gentleman as that Mrs. Upchurch is.” She wagged a finger. “She’ll get herself in a pile of trouble with the likes of him if she’s not more careful.” Then her face brightened. “But don’t you look pretty as a picture? You should dress like a lady more often, miss. Those plain gowns you wear hide all the pretty in you as if you were the grocer’s daughter.”

“Don’t be silly, Betsy. I am in fact a vicar’s daughter. I don’t need ball gowns.”

She thanked her maid and met Robin and Henrietta in the foyer.

“I am dazzled,” he said with a smile. The fervency and desperation of the night before were absent from his lapis eyes. But his appreciative perusal curled her toes. Today, dressed in a fine coat and starched neck cloth for the occasion, with his gold hair combed into a fashionable arrangement, he was handsome enough to catch any woman’s notice.

The master of Kitharan, however, was simply handsome all the time, in every way, and not least when he was dressed for his own hanging. For that, clearly, he seemed to believe he was about to attend.

He wore nothing unusual, had not in fact altered himself for the occasion, not any further than he had altered himself over the past decade—dark breeches and coat, a waistcoat of deep blue, and a grim mask on his face. He hadn’t even left off his boots.

Eleanor walked the long entrance hall of his house to where he stood at the base of the stairs. She would not be tongue-tied or afraid today. She had known him since they were children. She would claim the privilege of family and friendship, even if she had the most pressing urge to nibble on his jaw.

Still, when she halted before him, her face burned and her stomach twisted with guilt. She had kissed Robin Prince. She had liked it—
a little
. As if she had betrayed Taliesin, shame heated her everywhere. Looking into his black eyes she knew her idiocy, and yet she felt herself fall another step into him.

“You are dressed as though you might leap onto your horse and ride away at any moment,” she said quietly.

A slight smile. “I’ve been considering it.”

“You won’t die today, you know.”

“Are you certain of that?” His gaze scanned her from toe to shoulder, then her face and hair. The gown bared her arms, and some bosom. On the chilly drive over she’d been wishing Arabella’s modiste had been more generous with fabric. Now she wished the modiste had cut the entire gown away. She wanted the warmth in his eyes to burrow beneath the silk and set her alight.

“Fairly certain,” she said. “Unless you throw yourself beneath the wheels of one of those carriages coming up the drive now. Will you, and end your misery?”

“Would you like that,
pirani
?”

“Yes. That would be delightful.” He had abandoned her for days. “Ravenna would never forgive me for allowing it, and Arabella would bar me from her home for the remainder of my life. But certainly, on my account, yes, I think you should.” She spoke because she wanted to be touching him, but she could not with guests descending from their carriages just outside the door. And he had warned her not to.

She moved behind him. “Oh, no. It is too late already,” she whispered. “You must face the dragon.”

He offered her a half smile and went forward.

It was the last she spoke to him all day. She had been hostess at the vicarage for years, but she was no longer that anywhere, and most certainly not in the house of the already infamous master of Kitharan.

The guests proved wonderfully diverting. A few were supercilious, with noses high and no evidence of humor or intelligence about them. But most of the people Eleanor met charmed her. Everyone in the county had been invited, from local gentry to farmers. When Fanny wrote out the invitation list, Eleanor had insisted on that. Fanny had laughed at her provincial ways, but obliged. Now they all enjoyed the delicacies Kitharan’s cook had created, and Mrs. Samuel’s tour of the house.

Kitharan’s master alone seemed pensive.

Eleanor watched him. Surrounded by his guests, he spoke little, but they seemed to approve. Fanny was never far from him, laughing with delight, sparkling and gay. Mrs. Starch praised Fanny’s management of the party to several of the neighbors, and Fanny’s pretty cheeks grew rosier still. When finally she found her way to Taliesin’s side she remained there. Like a hostess. Like
his
hostess.

“He seems taken with her.”

Eleanor turned to Robin. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your friend Mr. Wolfe. He admires my sister. Funny that it should have begun with Henrietta’s foolishness and now ends with Fanny’s happiness.”

Eleanor’s heart stumbled. “Ends?”

“She has been alone too long since her husband’s death. She isn’t happy in solitude. I have often heard her speak of wanting children.” He paused, looking carefully at her. “I am happy for her.”

The room seemed to spin. It could not be. In so short a time?

In the same number of days Robin had proposed marriage to her.

But Taliesin was different. Taliesin was
hers
.

The air clogged with the truth, a hundred barrels of thick, cold comprehension pouring down upon her at once. Drowning her. She had never understood herself fully until now. She had never understood that in her secret heart she had always believed he would return to her. Why else hadn’t she sought marriage? She wanted children too. A family.

Her papa . . . the safe comforts of the vicarage . . .
excuses
. In all these years she had been waiting for Taliesin. Waiting to begin the adventure again. With him.

But he hadn’t waited for her. He had forgotten her. He had walked away from her years ago, and even so she hadn’t understood the truth. Until now.

“Dearest lady,” Robin said softly, close to her ear, “will you give me your answer? Your assent? Promise me your hand and I will make you the happiest woman imaginable.” His eyes entreated.

“We are barely acquainted.” Did she speak aloud? Her lips were numb.

“That hasn’t proved a hindrance to Fanny and Wolfe.” He smiled down into her face. “If you cannot answer at this moment, allow me only the hope that you might soon reply.”

“I hardly know what to say.” She couldn’t think. Only feelings came, too quickly and too many. “I—I should like to have a breath of air.”

“Of course.” He took her arm but she tugged it away.

“No. Alone. I need . . . a moment.” She fled, winding her way through the crowd in the hall to the kitchen.

“Oh, miss!” the cook said with a harried air. “You shouldn’t be in here. You’ll soil that pretty dress.”

The kitchen let off into the winter garden. Eleanor hurried between beds of greens and turnips to a path that led to the terrace, wrapping her hands about her bare arms against the cold. Constructed recently, the terrace stretched the length of the building, integrated artfully into the house, from paving stones to balustrade. Above, the heavens shone with stars tumbling upon one another, each fighting to brighten the sky. She watched her own quick, desperate breaths make frozen clouds against the glittering night.

“
Y se alegre el alma llena
,” he said behind her. “
De la luz de esos luceros
.”

She turned. He came toward her, limned in torchlight, silver glinting in his ears, as comfortable as master of this enormous house as he was of the open road. The Gypsy Lord. Not her Gypsy. Not hers at all.

“What does it mean?” she said.

“Something about stars, as I recall.” But he wasn’t looking up at the stars. He was looking at her.

“Why have you come out here?”

“I saw your abrupt departure. What did Prince say to make you run away from him?”

“I did not run away from him.” The lie bruised her tongue. “How peculiar you are to think it.”

He halted close and studied her face. “You turned white and then flew away.”

“I must have taken a momentary chill.”

“And you came into the cold to remedy that.”

Her skin was prickly with gooseflesh. “Is this an examination? Am I to recite my letters and numbers to you as well?” She turned her shoulder to him. Then only his voice would turn her limbs to jelly. “Your guests are departing. You should return inside and bid them good night.”

“I probably should.” He didn’t move.

“I rode here yesterday, with him, to tell you about something that I had found. A clue to my parents. A manifest from the ship with our names on it.” She spoke to still her trembling lips, and because she wanted him to know. She needed to share it with him. “She was called the
Lady Voyager
. Isn’t that curious?”

“That your quest should bring you to a ship so aptly named?” His voice smiled. “Yes.”

He understood. She’d known he would. Perhaps it was their shared past. But perhaps it was because he simply knew her. “Arabella will be happy to hear it,” she managed to say.

“Will you continue searching Drearcliffe?” In the starlight his shadowed gaze upon her seemed so intense, focused.

“I don’t know. I should probably return home now. To St. Petroc. But you must have matters to attend to here. I wouldn’t like to force you to leave on my account.”

“I am here on your account. This gathering of people at this house is because I am here in this country on your account.”

“You are misrepresenting the matter. This party is because you own a house here.” And because a girl just out of the schoolroom had forced herself upon him. And because a lady of spirit and warmth had chosen him for her second husband. The tight stays clamped around Eleanor’s ribs and made her breaths short. “I . . .”

His eyes on her did not waver. A shiver rippled along her body.

“When I ran away from Mr. Prince just now, he had said to me . . . He . . .” She could not say aloud what she knew about him and Fanny. If she said it, he would confirm it as true, and she might very well cry. Or rip up at him. Or throw something hot and sticky. Or all of those.

But perhaps she should say it. Perhaps that was her next challenge, to speak honestly. To throw all scruples to the wind. Looking into his face—familiar, beautiful, so deeply missed for so many years—she wanted more than anything to fly.

“Yesterday I kissed him. He kissed me. I let him. I asked him to.” Her tongue stumbled over the confession. “I enjoyed it.”

His brow cut down. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Why not?” Her brittle nerves cracked. “Your interest is elsewhere.”

He moved to her and she backed into the wall, her shoulders meeting the cold stone. “What are you—?”

He took her arms in his hands, grasping tight.
Touching her
. His eyes were sparks of black fire. But he was touching her and she was thoroughly, entirely, brilliantly alive.

His eyes scanned her face, swiftly, powerfully. “You believe in that penny fortune, don’t you? You believe Prince is the man Lussha spoke of all those years ago?”

Her jaw fell. “You
know
about the fortune?”

“Ravenna told me. It is foolishness. Lussha trades in superstition. Don’t tell me you believe in it.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” she whispered, her heartbeats tumbling. “I only know that five days ago I think I propositioned you, and your reply was to disappear.”

He dropped his hands but he didn’t move away. “I have stayed away from you intentionally.”

“How singular, then, that you agreed to escort me the length and breadth of Cornwall. Or is this merely momentary, and you simply fear I will demand an outrageous prize for helping you throw this successful party?” She tried to laugh; it caught in her throat. “If so, the prize belongs to Fanny. She did it all, of course.” The widow arranging her future while the spinster searched for her past. “I don’t blame you for it.”

“Eleanor.” His voice seemed tight. “I am trying to protect you.”

“
Protect
me?” By abandoning her? It was happening all over again, but this time he had given her warning. He had goaded her, kissed her, made her want him, and now he would not give her what she wanted. The devastation of it was that she only wanted him. With him she tasted adventure. She was free. Truly alive. Until he left her aching for what she could never have. “Do you know,” she said, “coming from the single person that has ever broken my heart, that assurance rings remarkably false.”