First Season / Bride to Be (37 page)

“This won't…do.” He was breathing hard.

So was she, Emily noticed. Her knees were trembling, too.

“I have to get you out of here.”

Without conscious thought, Emily took a step toward him. Her feet tangled in the long skirts of her riding habit, and she stumbled. Richard caught her, off balance, and they both went down in a flurry of broadcloth.

She landed on top of him, clinging. And then he was kissing her again, crushing her to him as if afraid she would escape. She surrendered to his lips gladly, shifting so that her knees rested on the floor to either side so that she could press closer. When she felt his hands through the cloth running up her thighs, she shivered with pleasure.

But they closed on her waist to lift her away from him. He thrust her upright, then stood himself, moving around the kitchen table so that it separated them. “I'm going to saddle the horses.”

“We'll never find the way back to the inn in the dark,” she pointed out breathlessly.

“Yes, we will.” He moved abruptly.

In the same instant the window behind him shattered and a bullet whined between them to explode in the plaster wall. Richard dove, catching her in his arms as he hit the floor just as the other window erupted, showering them with bits of leaded glass.

Richard started to crawl along the floor, pulling her with him. They wormed their way into the windowless hall, where he stood, yanking her upright.

There were voices outside. Emily couldn't tell how many, though it seemed like more than two. And they seemed to come from all sides of the house.

Richard ran to the front door and dropped a wooden bar into place across it. “Not that it will keep them out,” he muttered. His face showed intense concentration, and perhaps anger, but not a trace of fear.

The hinges of the kitchen door creaked, then immediately fell silent. Richard put an arm around Emily's waist and swept her silently down the hall and into a room at the opposite corner of the house. At a window he listened intently before pushing the casement open. Emily heard branches scrape softly as it moved.

Richard listened again, then leaned out the window. In the next instant he was pushing himself through it, his shoulders sticking briefly in the small opening. Once out, he turned and practically lifted Emily through. He pushed the casement shut and crouched beside her.

They had come out into a thicket of some kind. In the moonlight she could see that the bushes had grown into a mound, and dying branches in the center had broken off to leave a sort of vegetative cave.

Richard grasped her shoulder and pointed. Emily nodded and started to crawl in the direction indicated. She stopped briefly to hike her long skirts out of the way. Richard's fingers encircled her ankle as she did, sending a thrill through her despite the danger. And then they were both moving on hands and knees through a dark tunnel of underbrush away from the beleaguered house.

There were occasional shouts behind them. Once, a flurry of shots made Emily falter. But the sounds gradually faded as they drew farther away. And though her knees were being lacerated and her hands torn, she didn't consider stopping. It was obvious the killers had struck again, and there was no doubt about the outcome if they found them.

Crouching in a tangle of underbrush in the darkness, Richard listened for sounds of pursuit with all the intensity he had learned in the jungle. He heard a hunting owl, a whisper of breeze, the trickle of water in the gully below. He heard the rapid breathing of the woman kneeling next to him. They had been working their way steadily uphill, as fast as they could manage under the circumstances, and it had been taxing.

He listened. He didn't hear voices, or hoofbeats. It seemed that they had eluded the attackers for now. But they had to get farther from the house before daylight, and confuse the trail.

They began to move cautiously along the slope. Emily made no protests, thought Richard; no sign of tears or the fear she must be feeling. He hadn't been wrong about her—pluck up to the backbone, someone to count on.

He was shaken by a tide of feeling that kept him motionless. He had tried to run. He had put the width of a country between them. When he had felt the bond with her deepening in London, he had fled. It was the only honorable thing to do. Their sham engagement must be ended, his internal judge pronounced. He had to let her go before things became even more complicated.

But she had come after him, he protested silently. She had worried about him. Of course he hadn't been able to resist. No man could have resisted that tone in her voice, the delicate glory of her hair and eyes and that delectable body.

He heard echoes of her soft murmur—they were engaged. Engaged in chasing assassins the judge replied, and nothing more, as he well knew. Taking advantage of their agreement was not the act of a gentleman, even if her response had been so warm and eager that it nearly drove him mad to remember it.

Emily stopped and waited. No doubt she was looking back at him, wondering at his stillness. Richard started after her.

He steered downward now, with a ridge between them and the house. Near the bottom, the gully grew steeper, and he signaled for Emily to stop. Worming his way forward, he came to an overhang that dropped sheer to the small stream running through the bottom. The moon was fully up now, and its gleam on the water showed him only empty countryside. There was nothing to do but risk it.

He swung over the lip of the overhang and hung by his hands briefly. When he let go, he fell only a few feet to packed sand. Emily was already looking down at him. He made a motion and held out his arms. With only a moment's hesitation, she jumped into them.

It was like catching an armful of steel and velvet. He held her against his chest for a moment, relishing the feel of her slender strength. Then he set her down on the sand and bent to whisper in her ear. “We need to obscure our trail. We'll walk in the stream.”

She nodded. The moonlight frosted her hair and gave her skin a pale sheen. She looked directly back at him with a clear confidence. She was relying on him to get her out of this. She seemed to have no doubt at all that he would. That was far more daunting than simply saving himself had ever been.

She went over to the stream and Richard used a branch to sweep away their footprints as he moved after her. The water was shallow, fortunately, but lined with rocks and pebbles. They would have to wear their boots, and soak them. There was no other way to navigate such treacherous footing.

Richard prepared to step in, then noticed that Emily was holding up the trailing skirts of her riding habit with one hand. The extra cloth would hamper her damnably if they had to run. He knelt beside her and began to cut away the hem with his penknife, trimming the skirt well above her ankles. After one small sound, she turned to allow him to reach the other side.

When he finished, he rolled the cloth into a tight cylinder and shoved it into his pocket with the knife. It wouldn't do to leave it for their pursuers to find. Then he retrieved the branch broom, which would also alert hunters, and stepped into the stream.

The water was cold seeping through his boots, but not icy. They could probably manage it for quite a while. Waiting for Emily to go ahead where he could keep an eye on her, Richard scanned the walls of the gully once more. They were visible here, and vulnerable. But he still heard nothing other than natural sounds. By daylight, he intended to be far away, leaving no track to follow.

They moved through the night, splashing as little as possible, following the meanderings of the streambed. Richard estimated that two hours had passed when the gully began to narrow and the sound of falling water came to his ears. A little way ahead, the stream fell about ten feet to a pool before continuing.

He surveyed the dim scene. The gully widened and flattened, offering less cover. The moon was descending; soon their light would be gone. It was time to go to ground.

He held out his hand. Emily took it without hesitation, her fingers small and cold. Yes, he thought, she would have fought at his side through the jungle. She would keep going without complaint until she dropped of fatigue. He squeezed her hand in reassurance. She smiled up at him, and his heart faltered momentarily before beating faster. He let go.

Taking advantage of the slanting rays of the moon, he picked a way across the stony incline that caused the waterfall. It steepened ahead, suggesting the possibility of caves, which riddled this countryside. The moon had nearly set before he found one, and it was a shallow cup above head height in the rocky wall. Not ideal, Richard thought, but it was going to have to do. Deep darkness was just ahead and Emily must be exhausted.

Reaching up, he hooked his hands over the rim of the cave. He groped for a foothold in the cliff and heaved himself up. The depression was scarcely ten feet deep, he saw then. But it was dry, and there were no signs of animal inhabitants. Also, it faced west. Sunrise would not reveal its recesses to the world. He knelt at the edge and held out his hands for Emily's, half pulling, half balancing her as she made her way up. “We'll stay here till dawn,” he murmured.

She nodded and sank down inside the cave, her shoulders drooping and her head down. After a few moments, she tugged at one of her wet boots.

“Let me.” He knelt and pulled off first one, then the other. “We should try to get your stockings dry, at least,” he said very softly.

Emily half turned away from him, embarrassed he thought, and reached under her skirts to unfasten the stockings. She slipped them off quickly, shivering a little at the night air on her bare feet.

Richard took the cloth torn from her skirt out of his pocket and began to dry her feet. With a small sound of protest, she pulled the cloth away and did it herself. He picked up the wet stockings and hung them over a projecting bit of stone, knowing that they wouldn't actually dry by daylight.

“Shall I help you with your boots?” she murmured.

Wild laughter bubbled up in Richard's chest, almost impossible to choke back. She had sounded so matter-of-fact—as if they often removed each other's boots in the dead of night, in the back of beyond while men stalked them with murder on their minds.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he managed. He pulled off his boots and stockings, hanging them next to hers. He took the piece of cloth and dried his feet. She had tucked hers under her skirts, he saw, rather envying the source of warmth.

“What will we do in the morning?” she asked quietly.

“Figure out where we are, and head for the nearest house or village, someplace with enough people to make an attack impossible. My cousin's house, by choice.”

“We're lost now, aren't we?”

“In the dark, yes. But by daylight, I can get my bearings.” The problem was, it was several miles to any safe place, and their pursuers would certainly be mounted. “See if you can sleep a little.”

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I'll keep watch. I'm used to it.”

She was silent. After a little while, she leaned back against the wall of the cave and appeared to relax.

Richard watched the slope below and listened. The moon was gone now, and there was little to see. But he could hear night sounds. He could test the breeze for scents. There was no danger on the wind just now. He thought Emily had dropped off, and was fighting his own drowsiness, when she suddenly spoke very softly.

“When you were first lost in South America, were you frightened?”

He turned toward her voice, but he couldn't see her in the dark. Briefly, he debated his answer. He didn't want to make her feel any worse. But he couldn't offer Emily anything but the truth. “Terrified,” he replied. “The closest I'd ever been to wilderness was a foxhunt.”

She gave a little spurt of laughter, quickly stifled.

“I'd never even been in at the kill,” he added, remembering the old Richard with something near disbelief. That man had receded so far that he seemed even less than a memory.

“Were you wet?”

The question made him smile. “Soaked in salt water and cursing my fate. I spent most of a year wet. In the jungle, it rained every few hours.” He heard her small shiver. “It was hot, though, so one didn't mind as much. Are you cold?”

“A little.”

They seemed doomed to huddle together outside the confines of civilization, Richard thought wryly. First a shed full of hay, and now this. They were coming down in the world. He didn't know how he would bear being so close to her, but he couldn't let her shiver alone. Shifting, he slid an arm around her and pulled her to his side.

Emily nestled in as if she had done so a thousand times. Despite the rough surroundings, and their peril, Richard's body began to demand things he had no intention of giving it. He could control himself, he insisted.

Emily's head burrowed into his shoulder. He could feel the curve of her breast like soft flame on his ribs. She trusted him, he thought, with her honor, with her life.

The mixture of fear for her, self-doubt, and determination that Richard felt then was more intense than any emotion he had ever suffered. He wanted more than anything to deserve that confidence. The thought of failure was intolerable. Failure meant that Emily Crane would disappear from the face of the earth.

She stirred a bit, like a cat getting comfortable. Her breathing grew more regular. She had fallen asleep in his arms. She had given herself up completely to his vigilance.

The determination strengthened, filling his consciousness, steeling him against the voice of doubt. He would see her safe. He would do whatever that required. And any man who stood in his way…would regret it to the end of his days, which might be brief indeed.

Emily sighed in her sleep. She turned, and her arm fell across his chest. He wanted her, Richard thought. He had never wanted anything half so much. But that was irrelevant. He could keep his desires in check. His right hand, resting on the cave's stone floor, clenched.

At least sleep was out of the question, he thought sometime later. The unceasing demands of his body were keeping him wide awake on his watch. He dared a feather touch on Emily's hair. But the result was enflaming rather than soothing, and he stopped at once. He must think about tomorrow, plan their moves. He wouldn't rescue her by sheer desperate longing.

With a massive effort of will, Richard shifted his attention to the future, and ways they might evade their attackers and find their way out of the wilderness.

* * *

Dawn arrived by imperceptible stages, a slow diffusion of pearly light. Mist pooled in low places and drifted in veils among the crags. It would hamper their attackers, Richard thought, but it was a disadvantage for them as well. It would be much harder to get their bearings or travel in a consistent direction. Sound would be deceptive too, difficult to pinpoint.

Emily woke. After a moment's disorientation, she smiled at him in a way that made his pulse jump. Part of him wished fiercely that she had never come here from London, but another part exulted in her presence by his side. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

The smile turned rueful. “I'm hungry.”

“I'm afraid the servants have neglected to set out breakfast.”

“How careless of them.” She reached up and took her stockings from the stone, wrinkling her nose as she felt them. “Still damp. But I suppose it is only what one should expect when one is being chased by murderers.”

Richard smiled. “It doesn't lend itself to luxuries.” He watched her check her boots. “Are you ever afraid?”

Her azure eyes met his directly. “I'm terrified right now. But I've found it doesn't help in the least to give way to emotion on these occasions.”

“Having been so often chased by murderers?”

“They were usually after Papa,” she admitted. “But it's hard to tell the difference when you're small. Perhaps there isn't any.”

Some weeks ago, he might have laughed at this. This morning, he couldn't. Indeed, he felt an unaccustomed tightness in his throat.

“Not that most of them would have actually murdered him,” Emily added softly. “Well, maybe one or two.”

“You haven't deserved the life you've had. You should be given every luxury. You should be cared for and cosseted, and never have to worry.”

Emily didn't seem to know what to say. Her cheeks flushed, and she gave him a doubtful look. “I'd settle for a cup of hot coffee,” she replied finally.

Richard called himself to order. Turning away, he put on his stockings and boots and let himself down from the cave into the mist below. It swirled about his shoulders, completely obscuring the ground. “We'll have to get above this,” he muttered.

“What?” Emily's head appeared in the opening.

He gestured for silence, then helped her down. Keeping a hand on the cliff face, Richard moved away from the sound of the waterfall.

It was rough going at first. They couldn't see their feet, or obstacles that tripped them up. But finally the ground began to rise and the mist to recede. Richard judged that they had been walking about an hour when they reached the top of a ridge and looked out over a sea of fog broken by similar heights. Very conscious of their exposure, he led her down a little, until they were mostly hidden, and then went over his sketchy mental map of the area.