In My Wildest Dreams (22 page)

He touched the pocket of his waistcoat. Still dry above the loaded pistol he carried.

Wrapping the leash around his wrist, he allowed the dog his head.

Stupid, to carry a loaded pistol so close to his body when it could accidentally discharge at any moment, but he might have need of it.

The dog began barking steadily, deep, gruff woofs that sounded more threatening than a bloodhound had any right to be. Master and dog raced up the path, united in pursuit. They reached the top.

No one was there.

Throckmorton observed the area while the dog sniffed in circles, finding only a muddle of scents to confuse his refined nose. Then— “There.” Off the path, into the trees. Broken branches. Grass muddied beneath large, careless feet.

A red hair ribbon, dropped for Throckmorton's keen eyes to see.

Penelope. His darling daughter.

“Here, boy.” Throckmorton led the dog to the spot, lifted the ribbon for him to sniff.

The dog plunged off the path. They dashed downhill, raced toward the river. Throckmorton's feet slipped out from under him. He barely slowed as he tumbled head over heels, then rose again and ran.

The bloodhound tugged. His bark grew more frantic. They were nearing their prey.

“Papa, Papa!”

Penelope. She was alive, and shrill with terror. Throckmorton and the dog raced along. They skidded to a stop as they cleared the woods. On the plain that led to the river, a man sprinted, holding Throckmorton's struggling daughter.

Throckmorton would see him dead.

He let the dog go. The bloodhound bounded after his prey. Drawing his pistol, Throckmorton shouted, “Halt!”

The man did halt. Turning, he faced Throckmorton, holding Penelope as a shield in front of him.

Throckmorton's eyes narrowed. Vaguely he recognized the man. A servant. He must have come with one of the guests.

Seizing Penelope's slender neck in one large, brutish hand, the beastly fellow twisted it and yelled, “Call off your dog, or I'll kill her!”

He would break Penelope's spine.

Throckmorton called the dog back.

Penelope's voice was high-pitched with panic, but she called, “Shoot him, Papa!”

Brutally, the servant tightened his grip on the child. “You'll kill her if you do. Or I will.”

Throckmorton feared it was true. He was a good shot, but pistols couldn't be trusted. Not at this distance. Not with his daughter's life on the wager.

He began to lower the gun.

Reaching up behind her, Penelope grabbed blindly. She caught the fellow's ear, his hair, and yanked.

He doubled over, dropping her. Before he came up again the wet child slipped out of his grip. Desperately he lunged for her.

She rolled away.

Throckmorton pulled the trigger.

The bullet slammed into the blackguard's chest. He staggered back and fell.

Throckmorton experienced one moment of frightful, savage joy, the elation of a primitive who has rescued his progeny from danger.

Then, from out of the trees, a female form ran toward Penelope.

Throckmorton flung the useless gun aside. Swept along by dread, he lunged for Penelope, too. Then he realized . . . it was Celeste. Against all orders, Celeste had come after them. He was glad. She would care for his child. Gathering Penelope into her arms, Celeste held Penelope as she sobbed.

Throckmorton changed courses for the unmoving body in the mud. The bastard rested, face up, quite dead.

21

“M
am'selle Milford, you should have seen my cousin.” Kiki sat beside Penelope on her bed in the nursery, hugging her closely, speaking in faintly accented English. “She so bravely sent me on ahead and stayed to face that
canard
who tried to take her from us.”

“So I understand.” Celeste lit a match from the fireplace and touched it to each of the candles. Both girls had been steeped in hot baths until their shivering stopped. Both girls were swathed in their voluminous white nightgowns. Both girls had had their supper. And hours after returning to the house, both still had the wide, amazed eyes of children who had faced an adventure and survived.

Garrick had carried Penelope all the way back to the house, her head buried in his shoulder. Through the afternoon and evening, Celeste had cuddled the child every chance she got. Mrs. Brown would stay on a cot in the
nursery tonight in case of nightmares. But when Penelope calmed down, she seemed merely thoughtful. When her father took her to task for slipping away, she gazed at him calmly and said she had no choice. She had to go after her cousin.

Kiki reacted to the excitement in her own way—by chattering nonstop. “Penelope screamed to attract
le gredin's
attention while I ran down the hill.”

“Penelope is very brave,” Celeste answered.

“I found Uncle Garrick and told him what had happened, but he did not understand me! He does not speak French, so I told him in English, and you should have seen his awe!” Kiki giggled and laid her head on Penelope's shoulder. “He looked so funny with his eyebrows waggling and his mouth open.”

Massively patient, Penelope sighed. Already today, she'd heard the story at least a dozen times. But she allowed Kiki to tell it once again, saying only, “You should have told him in English to start with.”

“I forgot about the English,” Kiki admitted.

“I suppose I'll never be so lucky again,” Penelope said mournfully.

Celeste hid a smile.

Kiki cocked her head. “I do not understand.”

Penelope put her arm around Kiki. “I mean I'll always get to hear you talk . . . and talk . . . because you're not going to run away again.”

“Non.”
Kiki shook her head so hard her blond braids flew. “Never again. I will stay with you always,
ma cherè cousine
.”

“Very touching.” Mrs. Brown bustled in with the heating pans for the beds. “But ye've both had a lot of excitement today and it's time for sleep. Come on, now,
let's tuck ye in so Miss Celeste can go downstairs and join the party. ‘Tis the final evening, ye know, and she'll want to dance all night long.”

Kiki allowed Penelope to escape after one big kiss on the cheek. Kiki hopped across the cold nursery floor and between her newly warmed sheets.

Celeste leaned over for a goodnight kiss.

Kiki snuggled beneath the covers. “Are you going to marry my papa?”

Celeste shouldn't have been startled, but she was. Of course the children had watched the adults and listened to the servants' gossip. Of course they must be wondering at the week's events and how it would affect their lives.

But Kiki's ingenuous question made Celeste face a hard fact—a fact she had known almost from the moment she had returned but had refused to acknowledge.

She didn't love Ellery.

She had loved the bright, superficial image he cast across her life. She loved the idea of living with him, being the envy of other women, listening to him laugh, knowing her life would be a constant whirl of frivolity and pleasure.

But Ellery was not the man the Count de Rosselin counseled she seek. The count had told her to settle for nothing less than her soulmate, the other half of herself. Ellery was not that.

Smiling at Kiki, Celeste shook her head. “Your papa is betrothed to Lady Hyacinth. I think he will marry her—if she'll have him.”

For in the excitement of the kidnapping, the truth about Kiki's parentage had been revealed to everyone. Celeste well remembered the expression on Hyacinth's
face. The girl had had reservations about Ellery before; now she must be thinking hard about her future with him.

Penelope was already snuggled beneath the covers, and when Celeste leaned over to smooth her hair, Penelope looked up and asked, “Are you going to marry
my
papa?”

Frozen in place, Celeste stared into Penelope's dark eyes.

Marry? Garrick Throckmorton? She'd rejected the idea just that morning in the kitchen. Heaped it with the scorn it deserved. She had never really considered such a thing. But now . . .

Today he had been everything she dreamed of. He had rescued his child, he had vanquished evil, he had been honorable, strong and worthy of love.

“He likes you.” Penelope watched her, her gaze discerningly like Garrick's. “Better than anybody else. I can tell. I think you like him, too.”

Celeste swallowed. She did like Garrick. More than that, he was the man the count had urged her to seek. He was the man of her dreams.

“You should think about marrying my father. He'd like that.” Then in a discerning flip from old woman-wisdom to childish complaint, she whispered, “Do I
have
to be nice to Kiki all the time now?”

Penelope had shaken Celeste to her core. So Celeste experienced a little ignoble satisfaction when she whispered back, “Yes.”

Leaving Mrs. Brown in charge, she retreated to her bedchamber, the new one next to the nursery. A fire whispered in the fireplace, candles flickered in the sconces, and water steamed in a bath.

Going to the window, Celeste stared out at the night sky. The storm had blown away leaving the blackness of night and the stars which, two nights ago, had witnessed so many brilliant kisses between her and Garrick.

She loved Garrick Throckmorton. She
loved
Garrick Throckmorton. The very thought was alien to her, yet it nestled inside her like a babe. This explained the animosity and confusion of the last few days. She had come back from Paris confident in herself, comfortable with who she was, certain she could make the life she wanted for herself.

Instead she had been waylaid by Garrick, and what she wanted had changed. When Garrick had shown her that the dream of Ellery she'd cherished for so many years was nothing but a chimera, she had been left rudderless, tossing in an ocean of uncertainty.

Now she knew herself, and she knew the truth. She loved Garrick Throckmorton.

She couldn't fool herself. Probably he didn't return her love. He had made it clear that the lust he felt for her was uninvited and unwelcome. Yet that knowledge didn't change
her
feelings.

How could she respond to this love? What should she do to show Garrick?

She knew without a doubt. Walking to the cupboard, she pulled out her loveliest ball gown, a rich gold velvet which brought out the honey highlights in her hair, turned her hazel eyes to green—and sported a low-cut bodice with large, easily opened buttons up the front.

Just how Celeste found him in the dark conservatory, Throckmorton would never know. He wouldn't have thought she'd come for him. Not when the musicians
played a waltz in the ballroom and Ellery performed his usual charming patter. But she had; Garrick heard her skirt rustle as she strolled in.

He sat, cup of coffee in hand, on the sofa where he had performed that intemperate seduction. Staring out of the windows and into the night, he pretended not to hear her. It seemed safer.

She carried a candlestick which she placed on a table against the wall, bringing light, although it wasn't enough to illuminate the large room, thank heavens. He didn't want to see her, beautiful and unattainable. So he didn't move, didn't speak, until she stopped right beside his shoulder.

“What do you want, Celeste?”

She gasped a little, as if the sound of his voice surprised her.

Her own voice sounded warm, rich, with that faintest of French accents she developed in emotional circumstances. “How did you know it was me?”

“The noise your heels make on the floor. Your perfume. The way I . . .” He hesitated.

She filled in. “The way your body reacts when I'm near?”

He glanced up at her. Her hair was dressed loosely atop her head. A few tendrils already straggled down. Instead of looking untidy, Celeste looked enticing, like a woman about to prepare for bed. “You have lived in romantic Paris too long.”

“I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but I thought that might be it.” She slipped onto the sofa beside him, bringing a hint of her perfume. “Because my body reacts to you.”

Citrus, cinnamon and ylang-ylang.
He recalled the ingredients in her scent, but had forgotten all propriety.
“Let's not talk about that.” He laughed, a brief bark of bitter amusement. “You love Ellery, remember.”

“Well.” Turning toward him, she relaxed, placing one gloved arm in a graceful arch over the back of the sofa. “I fear I've had a revelation today.”

“A revelation.” He took a sip of his steaming drink and tried not to notice her dress. “Sounds dangerous.”

“It was. I try to avoid them when possible, but today I fear the naked truth slapped me in the face.”

“Uncomfortable.”

“Very.”

The gown was yellowish. The material shimmered in the faint light of the candle. The smallest of satin straps served as sleeves, leaving her shoulders bare . . . not to mention her bosoms, which, when she adjusted her skirt, moved with a gentle, mind-boggling quiver.

He tore his gaze away from her and looked back out the window. The reflection of the candle formed the single bright spot on the night-glazed glass. He could see himself. Today he had shot a stranger. He'd rescued his daughter. To no avail, he'd interrogated guests and servants as to the kidnapper's identity. And he'd explained to Hyacinth's satisfaction (he hoped) how Ellery came to have a child whom no one had yet mentioned. But in the glass Garrick appeared to be a man of no particular distinction, a man dressed formally except for his rumpled cravat hanging loose around his neck, a man quietly thinking his own thoughts. Not a man who drew beautiful young women to sit at his side when the last, the greatest ball of this fabulous house party went on nearby.

Yet Celeste was here, and no matter how he tried not to, he could still see her profile. She seemed pleased
with something, for the dimples in her cheek appeared and disappeared for no discernible reason. Her little shell of an ear peeked out from one of those loose tendrils like some mischievous body part playing hide-and-seek—with him. Her neck rose in an elegant arch, and her lips, so full and red, puckered as if blowing him a kiss.

Obviously, libidinous frustration had destroyed what little intelligence he had left after this lousy week, this horrible day. More than ever, he wished to find relief and release with this woman. This woman only.

Turning her head suddenly, she looked into the window and caught him staring. She smiled; all the enchantment and allure she had first bent on Ellery, she now lavished on him.

He might wonder what game she was playing at, but this week had convinced him Celeste was one of those rarest of creatures—an honest and genuine person. So why was she smiling at him? The possibilities made him want to seize and possess. Curse her; she bombarded the impregnable structure of his discipline until the very foundations shook. “Aren't you supposed to be at the ball?” he snapped.

“Aren't
you?”

“It's the last ball. You had better attend.”

“If you will.”

She kept watching him in the window, her gaze steady and pleased. Her smile didn't fade, but bathed him in a continuous warmth.

This afternoon, they had been caught up in a maelstrom of terror and pursuit. This morning they had shared moments of debate and passion. And yesterday
he had pleasured her quite against her will. She should
not
look as if the sight of him gratified her.

“I'm avoiding the receiving line, and the official announcement of Ellery's betrothal. I suspect Lady Hyacinth might object.”