The Protector (38 page)
Authors: Madeline Hunter
“It is a rare love that we have, Anna, and not given to many, I think. Certainly never to me before. I would have let you go, but it would have broken my heart. I would have had you stay.”
She pulled him down, holding him tightly and kissing him desperately.
“And I could never have left.”
HAPTER
26
A
NNA WALKED ALONG
the battlements bordering the field, relishing the warm sun and cool morning breeze. It promised to be a glorious day, and she decided to enjoy a long ride later. She would have to take an escort. Nothing had changed there, even with Gurwant gone and the estate peaceful.
It could have been worse. During the weeks since Morvan's rescue she had been holding her breath, waiting for more protective measures because of the unborn child. She had expected him to refuse to let her ride at all now. But whatever Morvan's inclinations, he had let things remain much as before.
She made her way along the wall walk to where she could survey the end of the field. Within days of their return men had begun raising a high fence down there, enclosing the northern third of the yard. When she had
asked Morvan why, he had said that he was building a breeding corral for Shadow and Devil.
But this fence was too high for such a purpose, and the space it enclosed too large. The mystery fascinated her, and she had come each day to watch the men cut the trees in the forest and hew them to shape, then haul them in and set them in the ground.
It was finished now. She decided she would go and see if anything had been put inside.
Morvan entered the bailey just as she reached the stairs. She ran down to him.
“I wish that you would stop wearing that brown pour-point,” she said, tugging at the garment in exasperation. She had tried once more to embroider it, with painstaking care this time, but it still looked horrible.
“I find that I favor it. It is comfortable in the warmer weather.”
“Then at least allow one of the women to redo the stitches.”
“It suits me as it is.”
He draped his arm around her and they strolled toward the sea. He sat on a large rock, and pulled her onto his lap. He still never noticed that she was too big for that.
“The first day that you came, I watched you sitting on this very rock,” she said. “I remember it well. There had just been a glorious sunset, astonishing in its beauty. Watching it had been like seeing a glimpse of heaven, and I felt as though I had melted into the sea and sky itself.”
A serious, speculative expression passed on his face, as if he found her story fascinating. “I remember that sunset, like everything else about that day.”
“While it passed I gazed down and here you were, completely unaware of me.”
“Not so unaware. I had always thought our love was born of my deathwatch, but I realize now that my full awareness of you began on this rock, in the glory of that sunset. I sensed you in it, as I always sensed you afterwards.”
She remembered the profound empathy she had experienced while she watched him on this rock. Perhaps he was right. She had never been completely separate from him after that.
“Then I am thankful that I stepped out on the gallery that evening,” she said.
He kissed her sweetly. “As am I. It opened my heart to learning that paradise can be found in love.”
They held each other in a mood as intimate as she had ever known, both looking out to the vast sea and sky. She noticed that Morvan gazed in the direction of England, as he often did when they stood together on the gallery. Their delicious unity led her to broach a worry that had formed in her heart. “Do you intend to try for Harclow this summer?”
“Nay. It will take a few years to prepare for that. We will let the world right itself first, and make this estate strong again before we turn to Harclow.”
“We? You speak as though we are together in this.”
“We are together in everything now. I find that I do not mind the delay, but welcome it. I want to see my son through his first years. When I leave, I want to know that another succeeds me.”
“It may not be a son, Morvan.”
“God help that Scottish laird then. If he is wise, he will surrender at once to avoid the chance that your daughter may one day carry my standard.”
Despite his jest, they were speaking obliquely of realities that might come. “I also welcome the delay. I would
not interfere with your destiny, but I want to live awhile in our love before you embark on that dangerous quest.”
“That sounds very womanish, Anna.”
“Aye, doesn't it. Perhaps it is the child making me feel thus. Or love.”
He caressed her face and turned her gaze to his. “Harbor no fears for me. We will live in our love a long while, until we are old. I am as sure of it as I am that the sun will sink into the sea again tonight. I was not led to this rocky cliff to only know a brief love.”
She believed him. The worry disappeared, consumed by the certainty in his fiery eyes.
She gestured to the new fence. “Now that it is finished, are you going to tell me what it is?”
“I already told you. When we breed the two of them I will want Devil here in case I need him.”
“It is much too elaborate for that. A simple post and rail would suffice.”
“I thought that would be too public for the virginal Shadow. I assumed that she was modest like her mistress.” He set her on her feet. “Let us see if it meets with your approval.”
The enclosure was larger than it looked from the battlements. There was nothing to see inside, except an old chest in one corner.
“Actually, I thought that you could plant a garden here,” Morvan said. “A rose garden.”
“I already have a rose garden, but, aye, some fruit trees and bushes. Flowers in the summer—”
“I was jesting. It is not for a garden, love.”
“Then what?”
“I have been talking with Carlos. I have asked him to become steward for all the farms. He will have less time for the horses. I thought you might help with them.”
She was speechless with surprise.
“Don't you want to do it?” he asked.
“Of course I do.”
“The rotation of the guards will change so that each morning a relief guard rides out and each afternoon the one that he replaces comes back. When you need to go to the horse farm, you can ride with them.” He gestured around the enclosure. “When the child is born you may not be able to go so often. Horses can be brought here for you to train.”
She assessed the space. For close work it would be big enough. The high walls would keep the horses from getting distracted by the bailey activities.
“Aren't you afraid that I will fall off a stallion and harm myself or the child?”
“A woman who can lead an army has the sense not to risk her neck or her unborn child. I think that you will know when to stop in the months ahead, and that you won't take any chances with dangerous games.”
“I won't stand on a horse's back, if that is what you mean.”
“That is what I mean.”
He walked to the chest, threw it open, and called her over. There were some sacks inside, and on top of them a brown tunic. He lifted the garment and handed it to her. “Put it on, Anna. Catherine sewed it for you.”
She stared in confusion. He reached down and pulled a sword from one of the sacks. “This was a gift to me from David. Now it is my gift to you. It is lighter weight than most. You should be able to handle it with one arm and learn to depend on your shield more.” He slid a new shield from the other sack and propped both weapons against the chest.
“You can practice with the bow at the farm,” he said.
“But you may use the sword only here and only with me. I want your promise on that. It is intended only for exercise, and for your pleasure. No matter how skilled you get, you will never be strong enough to face a trained man and you must avoid doing so whenever possible.”
The implications astonished her. “You will teach me?”
“Aye.”
“Sooner or later I will get hurt, you know.”
“With my skill it will be much later, and I will be careful.”
“Not too careful, I hope. I'll never learn anything then.”
He laughed. “Are you going to change, or should we go back to the keep?”
She began stripping off her gown. She glanced over her shoulder.
“It is too high,” he reassured her. “None can see. Ascanio helped me check the sight lines while the first wall went up.”
So Ascanio had been consulted too, as well as Catherine and Carlos. Everyone who mattered most to her had helped Morvan plan this surprise.
She stepped out of the gown and tossed it aside. Her shift followed. Naked except for her gartered hose and shoes, she reached for the tunic, but paused.
“Looking for this?” Morvan pulled a long silk scarf from the front of his pourpoint. He helped her bind it around her breasts. “But I get to take it off,” he added quietly.
She thrust her arms into the brown tunic. It was short-sleeved and came to her knees, but it had been made to fit her.
Morvan was enjoying her surprise and pleasure. She
skipped over and embraced him. “Why are you doing this?”
He wrapped his hand in her curls. “I had much time to think while in Haarold's cell, my love. All of this seems very unimportant now. Twice you have snatched me from the jaws of death, and both times you then gave me a magnificent gift. First it was yourself, and now it is this child. These are simple things in comparison.”
“They aren't simple to me, Morvan. I don't think that I've ever loved you more than right now.”
“Nor I you. But it would be a sad thing if my love kept you from being the woman I fell in love with. In truth, I have always thought the sight of you in a tunic and carrying a weapon exciting. That was the image I held in my heart the night I waited for Gurwant to kill me.” He gestured to the sword. “Let us start. God willing, you will never need weapons for other than sport, but in the hell that is the world today, one never knows. If my protection should ever fail, I would have you and the child be no man's victims.”
“If we work at this seriously, it will be much like being in battle. It will leave me very restless, I expect.”
The lights that entered his dark eyes made her heart skip. “I am counting on it.”
She picked up the sword and shield. They felt good and natural in her hands.
Exulting in her strength and love, she faced him.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next scintillating historical romance
by
Madeline Hunter
SECRETS
of
SURRENDER
Coming in June 2008
SECRETS OF SURRENDER
On sale in June 2008
CHAPTER ONE
M
iss Longworth walked beside him like a queen. Kyle admired how well she hid her humiliation. No one else saw the moistness in her eyes.
She almost broke once the doors closed behind them. Almost. One long pause in her steps, one deep inhale, and she walked on.
She refused to acknowledge him. Of course not. She was in a very vulnerable position now. They both knew she was at his mercy. The amount he had bid gave her good reason to worry.
Nine hundred and fifty pounds. How impulsively reckless. He had been an idiot. The alternative had been to allow that sordid auction to take its own course, however. Fat, pliable George would not have won, either.
Sir Maurice Fenwick had been determined to have her, and the way he examined the property for sale did not speak well of his intentions. Sir Maurice's dark excesses were infamous.
“I called for my carriage,” he said. “Go up with the footman here and pack. He will carry your baggage down. Be quick about it.”
Her posture straightened more, if that was possible. “I will not need to pack. Everything up there was ill-gotten, and I want no reminder of the man who gave it.”
“You have more than paid for every garment and jewel. You would be a fool to leave them behind.”
Her exquisite face remained calm and perfect, but the glint in her eyes dared him to make a horrible night worse.
“As you wish.” He shrugged off his frock coat and placed it around her shoulders. He beckoned her to follow him.
“I am not going with you.”
“Trust me, you are. Now, before Norbury thinks twice about allowing it.”
She kept her gaze skewed to the side of his head. She might have been looking past an obstructing piece of furniture.
He admired her pride. Right now, however, it was ill timed and a nuisance. He wondered if she realized how perilous her position had been back there… and still was.
“I am sure you know that I did not agree to that spectacle, Mr. Bradwell.”
“You didn't? Well, damnation. How disappointing.”
“You sound amused. You have a peculiar sense of humor.”
“And you have chosen a bad time and place for this conversation.”
She refused to budge. “If I go with you, where will you be taking me?”
“Perhaps to a brothel, so you can earn back what I will be paying Lord Norbury. To be deprived of both the price and the prize doesn't seem fair, does it?”
Her attention abruptly shifted to his face. She tried to
make her gaze disdainful, but fear showed enough to make him regret his cruel response.
“Miss Longworth, we must leave now. You will be safe, I promise.” He forced the matter by placing his arm behind her shoulders and physically moving her out of the reception hall.
He got her as far as the carriage door before she resisted. She stopped cold and stared into the dark, enclosed space. He forced himself to be patient.
Suddenly his frock coat hit him in the face. He pulled it away and saw her striding down the lane, into the night. Her pale hair and dress made her appear like a fading dream.
He should probably let her go. Except there was no place for her
to
go, especially in those flimsy slippers women wore to fancy dinners. The closest town or manor was miles away. If something happened to her—
He threw the coat into the carriage, called for the coachman to follow, and headed after her.
“Miss Longworth, I cannot allow you to go off on your own. It is dark, the way is dangerous, and it is cold.” He barely raised his voice but she heard him well enough. Her head turned for a quick assessment of how close he was, then snapped left and right as she sought an escape.
“You are safe with me, I promise.” He walked more quickly, but she did too. She angled toward the woods flanking the lane. “Forgive me my crude joke. Come back and get into the carriage.”
She bolted, running for the woods. If she reached them he'd be searching for her for hours. The dense trees allowed little moonlight to penetrate their canopy.
He ran after her, closing fast. She ran harder when she heard his boots nearing. The scent of her fear came to him on the cold breeze.
She cried out when he caught her. She turned wild, fighting and scratching. Her fingers clawed his face.
He caught her hands, forced them behind her back, and held them there with his left hand. He imprisoned her body with his right arm and braced her against him.
She screamed in fury and indignation. The night swallowed the sounds. She squirmed and twisted like a mad-woman. He held firmer.
“Stop it,”
he commanded. “I am not going to hurt you. I said that you are safe with me.”
“You are lying! You are a rogue just like them!”
All the same she suddenly stilled. She gazed up at him. The moonlight showed her anger and anguish, but determination entered her eyes.
She pressed her body closer to his. He felt her breasts against his chest. The willing contact startled him. He reacted like any man would, instantly. His erection prodded her stomach.
Jesus.
“See. Just like them,” she said. “I would be a fool to trust you.”
He barely heard her. Her face was beautiful in the moonlight. Mesmerizing. A moment stretched while he forgot what had led to this crude embrace. He only noticed every place where they touched and the softness of the body he held. Thunder rolled in his head.
Her expression softened. A lovely astonishment widened her eyes. Her lips parted slightly. The fight completely left her and she became all pliant womanhood in his arms.
She stretched toward the kiss he wanted to give her, and the moonlight enhanced her perfection even more.
Suddenly it also revealed her bared teeth aiming up at his face.
He moved his head back just in time. She used the opportunity to try to break free again.
Cursing himself for being an idiot
again
, he bent down and rose with her slung over his shoulder. Her fists beat
his back. She damned him to hell all the way to the carriage.
He dumped her into the carriage and settled across from her.
“Attack me again and I will turn you over my knee. I am no danger to you and I'll be damned if I will let you claw and bite me after I paid a fortune to save you from men who are.”
Whether his threat subdued her or she just gave up, he could not tell. The carriage moved. She was no more than a dark form now, but he knew she watched him. He found the frock coat buried amidst his rolls of drawings and handed it to her. “Put this on so you are not cold.”
She obeyed. Her fear and wariness filled the air for several silent miles.
“Nine hundred and fifty was a high amount to pay for nothing,” she finally said.
“The alternative was to let a man pay a lot less for something, wasn't it?”
She seemed to shrink inside the frock coat. “Thank you.” Her gratitude came on a small, trembling voice.
She was not weeping, although she had good cause to. Her pride, so admirable thirty minutes ago, now irritated him. The burning scratches on his face probably had something to do with that.
He wondered if she understood the consequences of this night. She had dodged a man's misuse, but she would not escape the ruin coming when the world learned of that party and that auction. And the world
would
learn about it, he had no doubt.
Perhaps now, in the calm after the storm, she was assessing the costs, just as he was assessing his own. Norbury had been angered by his interference. He had not liked his fun spoiled and his revenge made less complete. The Earl of Cottingford might be the benefactor, but his heir now held the purse strings and influence.
“I apologize for losing my head.”
“It is understandable after your ordeal.” It still impressed him, how well he had learned the lessons and syntax of polite discourse. They had become second nature, but sometimes the first nature still spoke in his head.
Damn right you should apologize.
“I am so fortunate that you arrived. I am so glad there was one sober man there, who would be appalled at what Norbury was doing, and immune to his evil lures.”
Oh, he had been appalled, but not nearly immune. He had paid a fortune, after all.
A few speculative images entered his head regarding what he would have been buying if he were not so damned decent. That embrace on the lane made the fleeting fantasy quite vivid.
He was glad for the dark so she could not see his thoughts. He could not see her face, either, which was for the best. She possessed the kind of beauty that left half a man's soul in perpetual astonishment. He did not like that kind of disadvantage.
“May I ask you some questions?” She sounded very composed again. Damnably so. The lady had been rescued, as was only her due. She would sleep contentedly tonight.
He would not. The costs of this chivalry, in money and other things, would be calculated over and over for days. Already the sum was growing in his head.
“You may ask anything you like.”
“The amount of your bid was an odd one. A hundred would have been enough, I think.”
“If I had bid a hundred, Sir Maurice would have bid two hundred, and by the time we were done the amount might have been much higher than I paid. Thousands, perhaps. I bid very high to shock the others into silence.”
“If he would have bid thousands, why would he not bid one thousand?”
“It is one thing to jump from one hundred to two, then to four, and then on up. It is another to jump from seventy-five to a thousand. It would have had to be a thousand, of course. Nine hundred seventy-five would sound small and mean.”
“Yes, I see what you mean. Bidding a thousand so soon or right away would give anyone pause. It is such an undeniably foolish amount.”
So was nine hundred and fifty, especially if you barely had it. A year ago he could have covered it easily enough, although few men would not notice the depletion of their purses. A year hence he probably could too. Right now, however, paying Norbury would make somewhat shaky finances wobble all the more.
He hated that feeling of insecurity. He hated the caution and worry it bred. Miss Longworth had chosen a bad time to need rescuing. It had been the only thing to do, however. He wanted to believe he would have done the same for any woman.
Of course, she was not just any woman. She was Roselyn Longworth. She had been vulnerable to Norbury's seduction because she had been impoverished by her brother's criminal acts. He did not miss the irony that Timothy Longworth had, in a manner of speaking, just managed to take yet more money from Kyle Bradwell's pocket.
“You are aware, I think, that I will never be able to pay you back nine hundred and fifty pounds. Do you hope that I will agree to do so in other ways? Perhaps you expect me to feel an obligation and thus remove the question of importuning.”
Is that what she thought had just happened out on the lane? He had not been thinking about repayment, or anything, much. Nor did he believe she had felt any obligation to respond as she had. And she had responded. Before she tried to bite him, of course.
“I have neither expectations nor delusions of enjoying your favors in that way or for those reasons, Miss Longworth.”
My, how noble you are, Kyle lad. Such an elegant idiot, too.
Those speculations kept having their way, however. The memory of that embrace remained fresh. He would probably indulge in a few dreams. Since he would pay dearly for them, he would not feel guilty.
“Perhaps instead you spoke of the brothel to make certain that I understood that tonight makes me fit for little else. I am all too aware of that. I know the high costs of what has occurred.”
Yes, she probably did. Her poise had made him wonder, though. And the boy from the pits of Durham had resented her reclaimed composure even as he admired it. A woman ruined irredeemably should not be so cool. She should weep the way the women of his mining village wept over loss.
“Miss Longworth, your accounting will have nothing to do with me. Forgive me for teasing you so unkindly. My annoyance at my own costs got the better of me.”
She angled forward, as if peering to see if he was sincere. The vague moonlight leaking into the middle of the carriage gave form to her features—her large eyes and full mouth and perfect face. Even this dim view of her beauty made his breath catch.
“You have been kind and gallant, Mr. Bradwell. If you want to scold and remind me of my compliance in my final fall, I suppose that I should show the grace to listen.”
He did not scold. He did not speak much at all. She wished he would. Their brief conversation left her feeling less awkward. During the silences she could only sit there with her worry while his presence crowded her.
She could not really move farther away, either. A collection of large rolls of paper filled almost half the carriage. She wondered what they were.
An inner instinct remained alert for any movement from him. She knew she was at the mercy of this man's honor. He knew it, too, and that moment out on the lane had confused matters. There had been a second or two— no more, she was sure—when that embrace had been less than adversarial.