When She Said I Do (43 page)

Ren shoved his fears down deep and urged the horse faster.

*   *   *

Callie tried to keep her balance on the back of the plow-horse. She truly did not wish to clutch at the man riding before her, but the big horse’s gait was rough and it was all she could do to keep from being bounced off onto the hard road.

Oh, just fall. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve taken a spill.

But it was a long way down. Her legs had long ago gone numb. She would not be able to catch herself, land properly. No, she would thud to the earth like a sack of flour. An image of her insides bursting out and coating all and sundry in brick-red dust crossed her mind.

Attie would understand the joke. Callie didn’t bother relaying her slightly insane thoughts to her captor.

Then again, it might make him fear her … if he weren’t quite so big, or quite so angry, or quite so certain that something was all her fault.

Of course, lately it seemed like everything was.

Don’t waste time on melancholy! Think!

Well, why shouldn’t she be melancholy? She was going to die soon, wasn’t she? Another jolting bounce made her injured back spasm with agony, stealing her breath, sending lightning bolts of pain through her entire body.

If she could spare a hand to press to her lower spine, she knew she would find her gown wet with blood. The idiot’s rough handling had opened her wound.

That doctor is going to be quite upset when I die despite his fine work.

Dizziness swept her, followed by a wave of fear. Perhaps it was more blood … than she’d thought.

No, stay angry.

By God, if he didn’t kill her soon she was going to take matters into her own hands!

He was mad, that was all. A strange madman had assaulted the carriage for absolutely no reason, possibly killing the hired driver and most definitely injuring Dade, and had thrown her across the back of his twice-damned horse—well, she supposed it wasn’t the blasted horse’s fault, but still!—and galloped away across the countryside!

Mad, definitely.

Dade would follow—except that he’d lain limp and still until she could see him no more in her desperate gaze. Papa and Lysander and Orion and the twins—no, they’d not even realize something was wrong until she and Dade failed to arrive at the prearranged stop this evening.

Hours until someone thought to look for them.

Hours until someone saw to Dade’s injury.

Hours until anyone realized that she was in the hands of a mad brute who hadn’t said a single word to her, hadn’t done more than grunt with exertion as he beat Dade to the ground, hadn’t even met her terrified gaze when he’d dragged her off to his horse.

That was perhaps the most chilling thing of all.

Whatever his purpose, whatever his motive, it was quite clear to Callie that she was not a person to this man.

She was an … an obstacle.

He didn’t look like the sort of fellow who would tolerate an obstacle for long.

*   *   *

Ren felt the chase coming to close. He didn’t bother to interpret the signs: the hoofprints still damp in the soil of the road, the freshness of the twig snapped and fallen to the ground, the droppings that had yet to attract a single fly.

These facts were noted and acknowledged and filed away with the practice of years. All Ren knew was that he had finally caught the bastard.

What remained to be seen was whether or not he’d caught up in time.

*   *   *

Callie felt the horse slow, its pace faltering no matter how much her captor dug in his heels. If she were healthy, she could leap off now, slide right off the draft horse’s rump and dash away into the hedges.

If she were able, uninjured, her legs not cold and dead, her torso not leaking, her shaking, weak hands not too numb to do more than to knot themselves in her captor’s rough coat.

Escape wasn’t possible. It was all she could do to keep breathing in and out and keeping at bay the gray fog that threatened to close over her vision.

When the big horse finally stopped, it lowered its head and blew great gusts of weariness, ignoring the man who howled and beat at the thick neck with his fists. His elbow swung back in his tantrum, catching Callie across the jaw.

Well, that did it,
she thought distantly as she began to slide.

She was unconscious before she hit the ground. This was possibly a fortunate thing.

Ren could hear the man before he saw him. The fellow’s obscene howling curses filled the dell with his rage, masking even Ren’s hell-bent approach.

Ren rounded a curve in the road and took in the scene an instant—the blown horse, foaming with sweat, the thick man beating at it … and the still, limp form of Callie dropped in the dust of the road like a broken doll.

Ren thought he’d been angry before. He thought he knew rage.

He’d never experienced the black tidal wave of murderous intent that rose in him then. He was off his mount while still at a gallop. The big black horse ran past Unwin and Ren dropped upon the man like an avenging demon. Unwin outweighed him by more than two stone and topped him by nearly a foot.

Within minutes, Ren had beaten the fellow unconscious with nothing but his bare fists and his bottomless fury.

Running to Callie, he dropped to his knees beside her. So still, as limp as death. She lay awkwardly, sprawled painfully as if thrown from a great height.

Ren straightened her limbs gently. “Callie?” he coaxed. He smoothed her gown. He pressed his palm to her wound, holding back the blood.
Callie. Callie.

He screamed her name. It came out in a whisper. No amount of noise would call her back if she’d gone too far from him.

Callie.
She blurred in his vision. He took her hands and pressed her palms to his cheeks.
Callie
.

He didn’t realize that Dade was there until he knelt across from him, taking one of his sister’s hands from Ren.

“Callie?”

Too loud,
Ren wanted to say.
You’ll frighten her off.

His own insanity failed to dismay him. His entire existence as a human man lay in the balance. If she woke, he would remember how to walk and talk and think. If she didn’t, then he would let the beast take him and never attempt to rise to the surface again.

He gazed down into her still, pale face. “Wake up, Callie,” he whispered.

A part of him was aware of the driver, with a rag wrapped around his bleeding head, poking at the fallen Unwin with a booted toe. “What’d ye hit ’im with?”

Ren didn’t respond.

Callie.

“He hit him with his hands.” Dade looked up, his voice choked with anger and worry. “I saw it. I rode up just as he finally let him drop. Is he dead?”

The driver grunted. “No. Not so much bein’ alive, as not all the way dead.”

Dade’s hand tightened on Callie’s. “Pity. It was a capital beating. I’ve never seen the like.”

The driver grunted. “Well, Sir’s an Amberdell man, ain’t he?”

Ren reached out and reclaimed that hand. Dade was being too rough, too loud. The ground was too hard, too cold. Ren took Callie into his arms, across his lap, cradling her so gently, so carefully.
Callie.

Dade took over, pressing his folded handkerchief to stem the blood.

Ren pressed his cheek to her cool one.
Callie.

He kissed her forehead, her eyes, the tip of her nose.
I cannot lose you. Callie.

He called her again and again, his voice hardly more than air on her ear.
Callie.

She warmed in his careful, sheltered hold. Her cheeks changed from chill marble to a softer pale pink. He thought he saw her chest rise higher, her breath deepen.

Callie. I need you.

She stirred at last, just a flutter of her eyelids, a parting of her lips.

Come on. Come closer.

Come back.

I love you.

At last, her eyes opened. She gazed up at him, unfocused and confused.

Ren held his breath. She blinked and scowled slightly. Then she swallowed.

“Did you kill him?” Her voice was just a rasp.

Ren’s voice stopped working. Dade answered for him. “No.”

Callie closed her eyes. “Pity.” She opened them again, gazing up at Ren with some urgency. “The horse—not his fault—”

Ren blinked rapidly. Callie, two steps from death herself, yet worried about the damned horse.

He thought he might perhaps remain a man after all, just to see what she’d say next.

She focused on his face with some effort, then frowned again. “Why did you come after me?”

Because I cannot breathe without you near me.
“I learned the culprit at last,” he explained awkwardly. “This fellow is obsessed with Henry’s wife, Betrice. He felt you took her rightful place as lady of Amberdell. He meant to remove you from that place.”

“So … you removed me instead?”

“I…” In truth, he had. “That isn’t…” He shook his head quickly. “I wanted you out of harm’s way. But it is over. We can go home now.”

She drew back slightly. “What of what you said before—your old life?”

“Life?” He dropped his face into her hair. “I never took a true breath until I met you.”

“But … all those things you said. It would be selfish of me to keep you home.”

“I lied. I only wanted you safely away. My old … friends wouldn’t allow me back, nor would I go back. I’ve found something new to believe in, you see.”

She gazed at him with shadows of doubt in her eyes. “The ring?”

He nearly wept. “A trick. That girl left me with my scars and my pride in tatters, but I never loved her. I never loved anyone until I loved you.” He cursed his own talent for finding weakness, for nurturing uncertainty. How could he convince her now that he’d meant not a word of it?

He wrapped his hands around both of hers and gazed into her eyes, willing her to believe. “Calliope Worthington Porter, I vow to you that I will hire servants, and tend my lands and look after my people and look after you and protect you from flaming birds and madmen and musket balls and rickety ladders—”

“And asps.”

“And asps. Most of all from serpents of all kinds.” He pressed her hands to his cheek. “If I do all that, will you come home with me?”

She pulled her hands away slowly, her small fingers slipping away from him. He did not tighten his grasp. If she didn’t wish to be his lady, he would not force her to be.

His heart shivered in the growing chill. Though it was only early evening, he saw the world darken. The beast stirred, sure of its triumph.

Her hands fell from his. She pulled them away, drawing them up toward her throat.

What a fool I am. She doesn’t want me. She shouldn’t want me. There is no place in her light for a man of shadows.

Her fingers scrabbled nervously at her neckline. Ren blinked at what she pulled out, twined about her fingers.

“What—”

With a weak but determined yank, Callie broke the strand of pearls that he himself had fastened about her neck that morning. Ren watched without comprehension until she raised her dampened gaze to meet his.

As the pearls spilled down over the two of them, she gave him a bruised, rueful smile. “It seems we shall have to start over,” she said softly.

The joy in Ren’s heart burst through the last remaining shreds of darkness, burning away the beast forever.

He grinned down at his valiant, irrepressible, unsinkable Callie. “Yes,” he breathed. “No rules this time.”

She shook her head. “Just one. Say it again. Say it every day. Forever.”

He pulled her close, as gently as he would hold an injured bird. “I love you, Calliope Worthington Porter. I shall love you until the day I die.”

“And after that?”

He took a deep breath of her hair. “After that I shall simply have to love you forever.”

Epilogue

“Darling, have you seen my paintbrush? I’ve just collected my first specimens of the spring and I cannot find it anywhere!”

Ren looked up from the estate ledgers on his desk and smiled at his lovely bride, who stood in the doorway of his study looking slightly exasperated. A perfect strand of pearls gleamed against her throat. Should he tell her that she’d used the brush as a hairpin again? Yes, he should, but before he did so, he wanted to fill his gaze with her wide, inquiring eyes and his hands with the rich honey fall of her hair when he pulled out the paintbrush.

He moved his chair back. She flowed into his lap without further urging. One of them was well trained. A year into their marriage and he still hadn’t figured out which one.

His hands moved over her back, digging gently into the muscles that still pained her when she was weary. They both had their scars. She purred and fitted herself more snugly into him.

Yes. It was time to admit that he did know who was well trained.

“It’s our anniversary,” she mused aloud. “I think it most unfair of you to survey the estate books on our anniversary.”

He smiled. “Our anniversary is tomorrow. As in, tomorrow your family descends upon Amberdell, bringing chaos, mayhem, and disorder.” Or, in his mind, Cas, Poll, and Attie, respectively.

Callie kissed his neck. “Today, as in, today is your last chance to roger me on the dining table for our wedding anniversary.”

His eyes crossed with lust. He began to kiss down her neck, down to her lush and lovely bosom. Pink nipples for elevenses …

Wait. No. There was something he meant to do first …

He sat up and pushed her regretfully off his lap. “I’m afraid I’m terribly busy. In fact, if you might assist me, I shall reward you by telling you where your paintbrush is.”

Disgruntled by his rejection, Callie folded her arms and tapped her toe.

Ren busied himself with his paperwork. “There is a volume on the mantel over the fire.” He gestured vaguely at the hearth. “If you wouldn’t mind…”

He heard her heave a sigh and stomp across the study. He waited. Calliope Worthington Porter had never met a book she didn’t like. He knew she’d not be able to resist reading the title …