The Defiant One (29 page)

All except a bright chestnut stallion in the last stall.  He was a short-backed but handsome fellow, with a long, flaxen mane, a dark eye, and a white blaze that tumbled down his sculpted face and ended at the pink seam of his mouth.

Andrew reached out and stroked the sleek neck.  This must be the infamous Sheik, who refused to mount mares, who had been, in his own way, responsible for Celsie's taking the aphrodisiac that had proved to be the undoing of both their ordered lives.

He smiled grimly.  Let Sheik, then, be the one to take him to London.

Ten minutes later, Andrew was in the saddle and Rosebriar was disappearing behind him.

~~~~

It was still dark in the room when Celsie awoke.

She lay there in bed for a moment, wondering why her heart was a granite boulder in her chest — until she suddenly remembered the reason for its heaviness.

Andrew had never come to join her.  Only Freckles, snoring, was with her, sprawled across the bed, the covers pinned beneath his big body.  Celsie reached out and stroked him, blinking in the darkness.  Oh, how empty she felt.  Like a child promised a toy that was never given.  Like a sweetheart promised a kiss that was withheld at the last minute.

Like an abandoned bride.

Slowly she pulled her legs out from beneath the sleeping dog, climbed from the bed, and went to the windows.  Shivering, she hauled open the drapes and was surprised to see stars outside, pricking through a night sky laced with cloud.

Good heavens.  What time was it?  And where on earth was her husband?

She rang for her maid.  It seemed to take forever before Anna came in, yawning and carrying a candle.  Celsie frowned.

"Anna, what time is it?"

"An hour after midnight, m'lady."

"An hour after
midnight
?  How long have I been up here?"

Anna looked suddenly sheepish.  "All day, m'lady.  We knew you'd been under a bit of a strain, so we thought it best to let you sleep."

"Where is my husband?"

"Gone, m'lady.  He took Sheik out this morning and hasn't come back."

Celsie stared at the younger woman.  "He took
Sheik
?  And the groom
allowed
him?"

"The groom warned him, but my lord wanted to take the horse, and Hodges said it would've been impertinent to deny him . . ."

Celsie put her head in her hands.  She had rescued the fiery Arabian stallion from a traveling carnival.  To this day, the horse feared and despised men, his behavior a testament to the abuse he must have suffered at their hands.  And now Andrew had taken him and still hadn't returned? 
Oh, God . . .
  Celsie tried to rub the parade of nightmarish visions from her eyes.  She saw her husband lying helpless in some forgotten pasture with a fractured leg, unable to get help.  She saw him lying dead out there in the November darkness, his neck broken, his body stiff and cold.  She saw him —

She jerked her head up.  "Has Sheik returned to the stables, Anna?"

"No, ma'm.  And we were all worried to pieces about the new master, but shortly after he left, one of the chambermaids found this outside your door."  Anna reached into her pocket and produced a sealed letter, immediately handing it to Celsie.

One fear was replaced by another.  Trying to hide her rising apprehension, Celsie slid a shaking finger beneath the blob of wax, opened the letter, and taking the candle from Anna, read the hastily scrawled words.

My dear Celsie,

  I hope you can forgive me that I shall be long gone by the time you find and read this letter.  I did not want to disturb you — or perhaps I am simply taking the coward's way out, for there are some matters I am not yet ready to discuss with you, matters which are unavoidable should I remain with you here at Rosebriar.  Thus I thought it best that we spend some time apart, until both of us have had more time to grow accustomed to being with each other.  I am going to London, and will return when I feel I am ready to offer explanations for my strange and unpredictable behaviour.  I hope you can forgive me.

A.

Apprehension turned to fury.

"How the
hell
are we supposed to grow accustomed to being with each other if he's in London and I'm here?" Celsie howled, balling the letter in her fist and hurling it across the room.  "
Men!
  Oh, Anna, are they
all
this insane, impossible, and bloody-minded?"

"Yes, m'lady.  At least Miss Upchurch says so.  Would you like me to fetch you some supper?  A hot bath?"

Celsie took a deep breath.  It made no sense to keep Anna from her bed, and putting her through the trouble of drawing a bath at this hour was not only unfair, but unkind.  "No, Anna," she said, on a grim sigh.  "But if you could unlace me and help me undress, that will be enough."

Anna was shy but efficient.  Moments later, Celsie dismissed her, and stood there in the middle of the room, dressed only in her chemise.

It would not be daylight for another few hours, but she was not so foolish as to travel the highways at night, alone and unprotected.  Her journey would have to wait.  She crossed the room and crawled up onto the window seat.  There, wrapped in a blanket, she leaned her cheek against the sill, hugged her legs, and stared out across the night toward London, counting the hours until dawn.

By the time the eastern horizon began to glow, she was dressed in a smart green riding habit with breeches under her petticoats for riding astride, and heading for the stables.

And by the time the servants began to stir, she was on her way to London.

~~~~

Many miles away, the duke of Blackheath was also up.

He was an early riser, given to taking a three-mile walk across the downs before the servants even rose from their beds to start breakfast.  Normally he found a long, hard bout of early morning exercise refreshing to his spirits, stimulating to his mind, a good foundation on which to lay the rest of his day.  But as he crested Sparholt Down and stopped to gaze off across miles of valleys, downs, and pastureland, all going dark beneath approaching clouds, he felt anything but invigorated.

He had seen the last of his brothers safely married off, and now only Nerissa was left.  But he didn't feel the peace he longed for.  He felt infinitely weary, like a man putting his last affairs in order as he tried to outrace a terminal illness.

The dream had come to him again last night.

He had been having it for weeks now.  The first time he had written it off as a foolish nightmare and promptly forgotten about it within moments after rising.  But it had come to him again three nights later, this time weighing heavily on his mind all through breakfast, unwilling to be shaken off, refusing to be forgotten.  Again he'd forced himself to forget it, to write it off as fanciful nonsense.  But it was impossible to forget something, to dismiss it as nonsense, when it began to recur night after night with mounting urgency, so vivid and real that it haunted one's waking as well as sleeping hours.

The shadows that Andrew had noticed under his eyes were not the imaginings of an angry younger brother.

And yes, Andrew was angry with him.  They all were, even Charles, the sibling with whom Lucien had always been the closest.  He was accustomed to their anger, of course.  It was something he had lived with for most of his life.  He could have told them about the dream, told them why he had been so desperate to get Andrew safely married to Lady Celsiana Blake.  But no.  Anger was far easier to handle than the concern and the pity they might end up feeling for him — and Lucien could not tolerate that.

Far easier to let them all think he was the diabolical monster he pretended to be.  They would never believe that his machinations were done out of love, that he had only their best interests in mind and at heart.  He was the oldest brother.  He was the duke.  It was his duty to take care of them, though that was something they had always resented and would never understand.  But Lucien understood it.  He understood his responsibilities, and he never forgot a promise.  He had made a vow to his dead parents that he would take care of his siblings, that he would see to their welfare and happiness until the day he died.

Even if that day might come sooner than he would have wished.

The duke turned his gaze from the far-off horizon and began the long trek back to the castle.  The air felt raw, cold, moist; it would rain soon.  He could feel the wind playing tag with his back, making all the thousands of little grasses shiver and tremble all around him as the sky grew increasingly darker.

Time was running out.

For even now, the dream was with him.  A duel at dawn.  A masked opponent dressed entirely in black.  A fatal slip and then red, raw agony exploding in his chest.

He died with a sword through the heart.

Every time.

Chapter 25

It was drizzling by the time Newton, a horse with heart if ever there was one, finally brought Celsie to the imposing wrought-iron gates of de Montforte House.

Cold and soaked through, she swung down from his tall back, patted his steaming neck, and bade the groom who came for him to give him an extra ration of hay and oats at feeding time.  Then, adjusting her cocked hat and squaring her shoulders, she marched toward the house.

If the staff was surprised to see her, they were too well trained to show it.  "Yes, my lady," said the housekeeper in response to her terse query.  "Lord Andrew arrived late yesterday and has been closeted in his laboratory ever since."

"Thank you.  And where, pray tell, is this laboratory?"

"On the second floor, my lady.  You can't miss it."

Celsie removed her damp cloak and handed it to a footman.  All the worry, all the wondering, all the tension of the past two days had pinnacled in her heart, leaving only a firm determination to put an end to this nonsense.  Still in her riding habit, her whip in one hand, she strode for the stairs.

As the housekeeper had said, the laboratory was on the second floor.  And sure enough, the door was locked.

Celsie raised her fist, rapped sharply, and then stood back, rhythmically slapping her whip against her palm in an attempt to keep her temper in check.

"Who is it?"

"
Your wife.
"

Silence.  She pictured him on the other side of the door, wondering where he could run to now that she'd found him, probably cursing her from Kent to Cornwall.  Celsie's whip tapping increased.  Her jaw tightened.  And then, to her surprise, the latch lifted and the door swung open.

"Andrew?"

He looked like hell.  Two days worth of russet stubble shadowed his jaw.  His eyes were bloodshot with fatigue.  His shoulders were slumped, his waistcoat hung open, and there were faint smudges of exhaustion under his eyes.  He gave a tired smile, and for a moment, she almost thought he looked relieved to see her.  But that was ridiculous, of course.  If he'd wanted to see her, he would have stayed at Rosebriar.

"Hello, Celsie," he said, calmly meeting her glare.  "I suppose I should ask you what you're doing here, but then you'd doubt my intelligence as well as my sanity."  He leaned against the door, bent his head to his hand and rubbed at his eyes.  "Guess I'm not surprised to see you . . . you shouldn't have come, you know."

"Andrew, when is the last time you got any sleep?"

"I don't know.  Maybe Saturday . . . Sunday . . . before the wedding, I think."

"Do you realize I am this far from strangling you?"  She raised her hand, holding thumb and forefinger together and glaring at him.

He just looked at her with bleary eyes.

"Come," she said, seizing his hand and dragging him from the room.  His toe hit the doorjamb and he stumbled, nearly taking her down with him.  "You and I are going for a walk."

"For God's sake, Celsie, have some pity, would you?  I need sleep, not exercise."

"Then you should have got some while you had the opportunity."  She pulled him, unprotestingly, downstairs and hailed a footman, who took one look at the drooping Lord Andrew and came running.

"Is his Lordship ill, my lady?"

"No, he is merely overtired.  Please fetch him his hat and coat.  We are going outside for a walk."

"But it's raining," Andrew said, looking out the window and frowning, as if he'd only just become aware of that fact.

"So it is.  Just what you need to wake you up."

She took his greatcoat from the footman and helped him into it herself when it became obvious that he was so dazed with exhaustion that his arms would not obey his brain. 
You shouldn't be doing this,
her conscience protested. 
The poor man is walking in his sleep.  For heaven's sake, have some mercy and put him to bed.

What, put him to bed and allow him to regain his energy, only to shove her away all over again?  Oh, no.  That would not do at all.  He was tired, he was vulnerable, and she was going to get to the bottom of this nonsense while she had him right where she wanted him.  Besides, if he'd really wanted to sleep, he would have been in bed, not working on a formula to make himself invisible or a machine to mince turnips or whatever the devil he did when he holed himself up in that confounded laboratory.  She'd had enough of his tendency toward avoidance.  She'd had enough of his running away from what was obviously becoming a serious problem.  She had the fox by the tail, and damn it, she wasn't about to let him go.

Calling for her cloak, she slipped her hand within the crook of his elbow, and together they went outside.

There he took off his hat and tilted his head back, closing his eyes and letting the icy drizzle beat down on his face in an obvious attempt to wake up.  Then, blinking the water from his eyes, he offered his elbow once more.  Celsie did not press him to speak.  He would talk to her when he was good and ready, and she had already learned that forcing him into a premature discussion of whatever was troubling him would only yield anger and resistance.  And so she said nothing, simply walking beside him, allowing him to set the pace for both their walk and their impending conversation.