A Reckless Beauty (25 page)

“Obviously, and Ethan’s with me, as well,” Fanny’s sister said, coming to a halt after sweeping into the room, to hold her arms out to her. “And you’re married. I can’t believe it.”

Valentine watched, a bemused smile on his face, as Fanny ran to her sister, who was as night to her day, her hair as black as midnight, her features bright, vibrant, rather exotic. They were both tall and slim, but Morgan had a rich lushness about her curves that did much more than simply whisper at her femininity. She was, in short, about as subtle in her beauty as a stiff wind knocking your hat off and whirling it down the street.

“Brede,” the Earl of Aylesford said quietly as he entered the room behind his wife, still beating road dust off his sleeve with his riding gloves. He was dressed impeccably, as was his reputation, his dark blond hair combed severely off his face and caught in a black riband at his nape. The same silly Aylesford Valentine remembered, except that, thanks to explanations from Ainsley and the others, he now knew better. The man was as much a Becket now as if he’d born to the brood.

“Aylesford,” Valentine returned, bowing to the man. “An unexpected pleasure.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Ethan Tanner said, grinning at him. “What man wants to be chased down in the first blush of his honeymoon? I did have time to hear of your hasty escape from Becket Hall, before my wife dragged me after you.” He held out his hand to Valentine. “My felicitations, friend, and a bit of tongue-in-cheek sympathy. Fanny will keep you on your toes.”

“Oh, stop teasing him, Ethan,” Morgan warned her husband, laughing as she pulled out of Fanny’s rather watery embrace. She walked over to Valentine and held out her hands to him. “Welcome to the family, Valentine. I only, as do we all, regret the circumstances.”

Morgan’s words sent a pall over the small room for a few moments, until Fanny said, “But it’s all right, Morgie. Courtland’s gone to find Rian, and bring him home.”

Morgan shot Valentine a quick, questioning look, then slipped an arm around Fanny’s shoulders and directed her out into the hallway, saying, “I’m sure there’s a nice path outside somewhere. Let’s take a walk, sweetheart, shall we?”

Valentine watched them go before shouting for the innkeeper, ordering a second tankard and pitcher of beer. “Sit, Ethan. She…she’s dealing with Rian’s death in her own way. By degrees, I guess you’d say.”

Ethan sat himself in the chair Fanny had lately vacated, placing his gloves on the tabletop. “Yes. Spencer quickly told me what’s going on, as I waited for Morgan to change into her riding habit. Damn, I can’t believe the boy’s gone. How’s Ainsley taking it? It’s difficult to tell with him, as he’s very much his own man.”

Valentine shrugged, silently allowing the landlord to scurry in, then scurry out again, clearly overwhelmed by the presence of not two but four members of the quality deigning to visit his humble establishment. “I don’t know the man well enough to say, having first met him a few days ago. But he agreed to send Courtland to follow the trail I described to them. Hope dies hard, Ethan. We all know that. More especially, I’d imagine, when it’s your child.”

Ethan nodded his agreement. “I can’t even imagine his pain. I look at my own children and—no, I can’t even imagine it. So, let’s put that aside, shall we? You know about Edmund Beales? I’ll assume you do, since he seems to have sent someone after Rian.”

Valentine took a deep drink of the cold beer as he collected his thoughts. “I don’t understand the depth of the man’s hatred—Beales, that is. And Court said something to me. Beales, if he finds them, if he comes after them, will want Ainsley alive. Do you know why?”

“No, and don’t think I haven’t asked. What happened was terrible, but it was, what, seventeen or so years ago? Beales was certainly the victor in that encounter, the bastard. What else would he want from Ainsley? He killed the man’s wife, he killed the man’s people,
destroyed
them. I’ve learned that he carried away Ainsley’s share of whatever plunder they still had there on the island. What else could he want? Want badly enough to interrupt his own life now, all these years later?”

“I saw him, you know, earlier this year, in Vienna. The man had a diamond on his hand the size of a goose egg. And he was rigged out like a prince. He had a small black page, as I recall it, forced to stand behind him for the full three hours we sat at table. That’s probably why I remember him—for the callous way he treated that boy. I didn’t care for him, but others at the table were fawning all over him. He’s rich, he’s been careful to keep himself aligned with the winning side. What does he need with an old grievance?”

“He still can’t know for certain that Ainsley’s still alive, remember,” Ethan pointed out, slicing himself a piece of bread from the loaf and wrapping it around a slice of ham. “All he knows now, at least as far as we’ve considered the thing, is that his lucrative smuggling operation, funneling English gold to him, was destroyed by someone named Becket. Unless Spencer’s wrong, and someone was left alive last August when he had that small dustup in London with Beales’s men. There is that. In any case, Beales is a careful man, and we’re a complication, a loose end at this point, one he must like to see snipped.”

“So that he can come back here, to England, without worrying that someone might expose him?” Valentine leaned his elbows on the tabletop, as all the pieces suddenly fell into place for him. “That’s it, Ethan. That’s got to be it. Beales is planning a return to London.”

“A
triumphant
return, yes.” Ethan lifted his tankard in salute. “I always thought I’d like you. And now that we’re settled that between us, let me drink to you and your lovely bride, and then drag Morgan out of here and back to Becket Hall. After all, you’ve only just escaped us, haven’t you?”

F
ANNY SAT ALONE
on the low stone wall in the stand of trees about one hundred yards away from the stable behind the
The Golden Fleece,
thinking about all that Morgan had said to her before kissing her goodbye and going off to rouse her husband from his coze with Valentine. They needed to start back to Becket Hall while the sky was still light, if they didn’t want to push their mounts too hard, and that’s one thing neither Morgan nor Ethan would ever do.

Her married sisters and Mariah all had given her advice now. Mariah had advised her to be careful of Valentine’s feelings. Eleanor had urged her to remember that she was now in charge of her husband’s comforts.

But it was left to Morgan to tell her that a gentleman might desire a lady in his drawing room, but he much preferred that lady to leave all of her fine manners and gently reared inhibitions at the bedchamber door.

“I saw the way he was looking at you when I came crashing into the room,” Morgan had said to her, squeezing her fingers in her own. “He looked as if he could eat you up. I’ve seen Brede a time or two, you know, in London, and I never thought I’d live to see such a warm, caring look on his homely face.”

“How can you say such a thing? He doesn’t have a homely face,” Fanny had protested in real shock. “He’s…he’s quite handsome. He’s just…well, he’s just Brede. When he’s tired, when he’s…when he’s mussed, when he isn’t being so concerned with his consequence, why, he’s just like a little boy, Morgie. His hair falls in his face, and he looks at a person from beneath those droopy eyelids he employs to such great advantage when he thinks he’s being intimidating. And…and when he smiles—when he laughs? How can you call him homely? Shame on you. He’s…why, he’s
beautiful.
”

Morgan had laughed at that, and then shaken her head. “I suppose that’s it—I’ve never seen the man smile. But that’s what you see, Fanny? You see Brede as beautiful? Then, of course, you’re right, and he is just that—beautiful. Oh, this is wonderful. You’re in love with him, aren’t you, little sister? Elly was worried you might not be, that you might have simply run to him when Rian—Well, see how wrong our resident worrywort was, hmm?”

In love with him? In love with Brede?

Fanny played the words over and over inside her head as she worked at the pretty yellow-centered wild daisies she and Morgan had picked as they’d walked along, one completed daisy chain resting on her hair, the remainder of the pile in her lap as she fussed with the blooms, absently slitting their stems with her thumbnail, then lacing them together.

It was so peaceful here, sitting beneath the trees, sunlight filtering through the leaves and onto the ground around her. They’d traveled only about ten miles inland, always heading to the West, but the landscape had already begun to change. Become more lush, greener.

She’d lived her entire life close beside the water, looked out over an endless vista of sea and sky, and had never really imagined living anywhere else. Brede Manor was inland, she knew that. Would she be happy there? Or would she miss the sound of the waves, the smell of the saltwater?

As long as Valentine was there with her, did it really matter where she was, what sort of scenery lay outside her window?

Fanny loved Becket Hall, the wide, wild, mysterious Marsh. But there was an entire world out there she’d never seen, the beginnings of that different world only miles from her own doorstep. She hadn’t cared about that; she’d been content. Her world had been Romney Marsh. How was a person to know she’d enjoy flying, until she’d spread her wings?

Fanny lifted her head slightly, sniffed at the air and smiled. “Where are you?” she asked, turning her head this way, then that, looking for Valentine somewhere in the trees.

“So much for my legendary stealth,” he said from somewhere behind her, and she quickly turned completely about, to see him standing with one arm raised and leaning against a tree trunk.

He’d rid himself of his jacket and waistcoat, and his untied cravat hung around his neck the way the silk scarf had done the first time she’d seen him. He bit down on the lit cheroot clamped in the corner of his mouth and pushed at the hair that had been snared by a leafy branch, only making more of it slide forward, now caught in the clutches of the sweet breeze.

Fanny’s heart did a small, fluttering flip in her chest. Morgan should see him now, then she’d understand. Mussed, rumpled, his eyes alive with humor. “I smelled your cheroot,” she told him, watching as he pushed himself away from the tree and came to sit down beside her on the stone wall.

“Here,” she said, finishing the second daisy chain and holding it up, intending to put it on his head.

“Oh, I think not,” he told her, taking the chain from her and putting it with the one already on her head. “There. I crown you Queen of the Daisies. Long live the Queen.”

Fanny looked up, as if she could see the flowers on her head. “That’s silly. Are they gone? Morgan and Ethan, I mean, not the daisies.”

“Yes, I know who you meant. I waved them on their way myself, just to be certain they were. Fine horseflesh they’re riding, the two of them. And your sister sits a horse quite well, although she doesn’t have a patch on you, when you’re astride in your uniform trousers.”

Fanny bent her head, feeling warmth creep into her cheeks. “We weren’t going to talk about that anymore, remember?”

“Ah, but I insist that you must at least allow me my fond memories, sweetings,” he said, grinning around the cheroot. “Shall we walk?”

Fanny got to her feet quickly, hoping she hadn’t let him see how anxious she was to be doing something other than sitting close beside him, wondering what he’d think of her if she were to lean toward him, only slightly, push at the hair loosely framing one side of his face, and then perhaps press her lips against his smiling mouth. “Morgan and I walked back this way,” she said, pointing to her left. “There’s a well back there. Morgan called it picturesque.”

“And did you call
down
it? Listen to hear if there’s a member of the Waterguard desperately clinging to the slippery sides by his fingernails, hoping to be rescued?”

“That doesn’t really happen,” Fanny told him, taking his hand without thought and leading him along a narrow path leading to the old stone well. “At least not for years. And not here. Chance’s wife, Julia, told me all about those terrible times. That was the Hawkhurst Gang, and others, who were so violent, and they’ve all long since gone to their rewards.”

“Or the hangman,” Valentine said as they stopped beside the well. “Still, we should at least try,” he added, bending over the opening,
“Hall-oo!”

Hall-oo…Hall-oo…
echoed back at them, and Fanny giggled.

“Let me try.” She leaned in over the well, Valentine hastily grabbing at the sash of her gown to steady her, and she cupped her hands around her mouth. She thought for a moment, frowned and, her hands still up at her face, turned to him. “What shall I say, Brede?”

“Valentine,” he told her quietly. “Say Valentine.”

“But I—” Fanny allowed her hands to drop to her sides. “Valentine,” she said softly. Then she said his name again, more strongly this time. “Valentine.”

It was his turn to cup his hands around her small face. “Again. And this time, say it like this. Valentine…kiss me.”

Fanny’s heart was beating wildly in her ears. Could he hear it, too? She laid her hands on his arms, needing to hold on to him or else her knees might give way. “Valentine. Please kiss me.”

“Ah, even a
please.
How can I possibly refuse?”

“Refuse?” She dug her fingertips into his forearms. “Wretch. You were the one who asked me to—”

But that’s as far as she got, because he was kissing her now, his mouth warm and possessive and seemingly hungry for her, and she had closed her eyes and was eagerly kissing him back.

Holding each other, they slowly subsided onto to the wide stone wall surrounding the well, sitting with their knees touching, Valentine’s arms slipping around her, Fanny tightly holding on to the ends of his untied neck cloth as she pulled him closer. After all, hadn’t Morgan told her that husbands didn’t want dainty little misses in their beds?

When Valentine moved his hands to cup her breasts, Fanny realized something. She wasn’t in her husband’s bed. She was here, not one hundred yards from a busy inn, being wonderfully mauled by that same husband.

And then she realized something else.

She didn’t care.

Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt, undoing them, one after the other, until she could slip inside, run her fingers over his heated skin, and he rather groaned against her mouth, most especially when she lightly rubbed her fingers over his flat male nipples.

But fair was only fair, and that’s what he was doing to her, wasn’t he? Oh, yes, he was.

Even through the fine lawn of her gown, her chemise, she could feel his touch, feel her body responding to that touch, her nipples hardening, so that he was able to actually take them between his thumb and forefinger, squeeze her gently, draw a soft moan from her own lips.

His mouth left hers as he trailed kisses along her jawline, lightly licked the sensitive skin behind her ear, nipped at the side of her throat as she tipped back her head and opened her eyes, looked up through the canopy of trees, at the sunlight streaming down through the leaves.

It was a wide, wonderful world, filled with new sights, even new sounds…and most definitely new experiences. Wonderful experiences. Fresh, exciting. Heady. Heart-poundingly beautiful.

Her eyes opened wider as Valentine continued to kiss her, now licking at the skin exposed above the modest neckline of her gown…now fastening on her nipple through the stuff of her gown. Sucking. Teasing…

She felt his right hand move to her knee, easing up the material of her skirt. Felt the warm sun and soft breeze against her leg as he raised that hem up and over her knee, then placed his hand on her thigh. Stroked her, inched up higher…higher…found his way beneath her smallclothes and all the way to the warm, moist place between her legs.

She felt his fingers there, gently opening her, seeking out the small bud of her womanhood, his touch sending waves of sensation throughout her body, causing the blood to pound in her ears, her breath to catch in her throat.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated all of her being on what Valentine was doing to her, and the way her body was responding to him, opening for him, straining toward him.

“Valentine…”

There was nothing else to say. Because he seemed to know. Know everything she needed, everything she wanted, even as she didn’t know, could never have imagined…

“Valentine…”

He held her close, whispered against her ear. “Yes, sweetings, yes. It’s all right, it’s all right.” He caught her startled cry with his mouth as her body began to convulse around him, and held on tight until she melted against him, her breathing swift and shallow, her body seemingly gone boneless.

Fanny slowly collapsed against his shoulder as he held her, gently smoothed her skirt back down over her knee, ran his fingers through her sun-warmed hair, pressed light kisses on her forehead and cheeks, and finally put her from him, smiling into her face.

“Well, that was an odd reaction to hearing you say my name,” Valentine said, letting out a long breath. “You might not want to do that too often, and most especially not when we’re out in public.”

“Valentine,” Fanny said, moving toward him once more, only to have him put his hands on her shoulders, keeping his distance. “What’s wrong?”

He chuckled softly. “You’ll understand one day. But for now, wife, I can only ask you to sit here with me for a while as we admire the flowers and the trees and listen to the birds, and I think about draining fields, and if my steward planted the wheat at the proper time, and…” He let his voice fall off as Fanny looked at him, and a hot blush ran into her cheeks.

“Oh, Brede, I’m so sorry.” Fanny hopped up from the side of the well and stood back a good three paces, wrapping her shawl tightly about herself, as if that would help him to somehow see her as less than what he knew she was, which was as the most beautiful, desirable creature he could ever hope to see.

This probably wasn’t the moment to tell her that all he wanted was to lie her down among that nearby patch of daisies and make love to her until her eyes rolled back in her head, find the release he craved to the core of his being. “It’s all right, Fanny. Just give me a few moments. I’m confident I’ll survive.”

“But it’s not all right.” It had taken her some moments, lost as she was in her own pleasure, but she now felt she understood his dilemma. “I’m so stupidly selfish. I just take and take, don’t I? I never
give.
”

“Fanny, no—” he began, but she had already turned on her heels and was walking quickly back down the path, and then running toward the inn, the two daisy chains still, remarkably, crowning her white-blond hair.

She’d be all right. There really wasn’t much trouble she could get into at the inn, at any rate. And she’d calm down, she always did, always saw reason. He just had to give her some time to collect herself, that’s all. And, once she did, there was the matter of how she’d attempt to make it up to him. There was always that, he thought, various possibilities playing through his mind, making him smile.

So he sat there, at the well, and thought his own thoughts, and then eventually found his way back to the inn, to find the innkeeper and order what he hoped would be a memorable meal served in his and Fanny’s shared bedchamber in a few hours.

“Yes, my lord,” the innkeeper said once he and Valentine had exhausted the inn’s simple yet fairly extensive menu, choosing several dishes he hoped would please his bride. “And would you be wanting a tub as well, my lord?”

“As well?”

“Yes, my lord. My wife and daughters are in the kitchens heating up water for one now, for your lady wife. We’ve another chamber free. Would you be wanting a tub?”

Valentine put his arm around the smaller man’s shoulders and walked him toward the taproom. “Ah, my good sir, what a splendid idea. But with a few minor adjustments in the logistics of the thing, hmm?”