Her Lord and Protector (formerly titled On Silent Wings) (19 page)

But Katherine
reached over and jabbed his hand hard with the point of her quill.

Alex dropped his
fork in surprise. Clearly unsatisfied with his explanation, she flicked her paper
across to him.

The words jolted
him with their directness. “Why, you ask? Why not give love a chance?” He
grunted his impatience. “That doesn’t matter. You needn’t be concerned with my
feelings, Katherine. I wish only to help you regain your voice. ’Tis something
I would do for anyone under my care. Do not take it as a token of affection.”

Katherine’s
mouth tensed in frustration, and she spent the next few minutes cutting up her
pasty with vicious strokes of her knife. Several times she looked at the quill
as if she would respond, but didn’t lift it.

Alex watched
her. If only he could convince her that she wouldn’t be happy with him. Mary
had proven that.

Finally, she set
down her fork and wrote while he refilled their tankards.

I would not
cause you pain
.

Startled, he
studied her expression, warm and wanting. Did her feelings run so deep? Had
Agnes, in her comments to Edward in the herbarium, been accurate?

“I know that you
wish to settle into a loving marriage,” he said softly. “I cannot provide that
for you, Katherine. I will not.”

The warmth
vanished from her eyes. Setting her mouth into a thin line, she scribbled,
I
did not ask
.

“Then you
understand that you and I will never be together.” As soon as the words left
his lips, the familiar sorrow attacked him, chipping away at the ice that clung
stubbornly his emotions. He gritted his teeth and crushed the feeling with all
his might.

She waited,
watching him, her eyes questioning.

He leaned toward
her and his voice was a strangled whisper. “Listen to me. I want no one. I love
no one
. I want to remain
alone
.”

Katherine
acquiesced his words with neither compassion nor indifference. Instead, her
eyes narrowed in anger.
Your choice
, she wrote, and then jabbed a finger
at her earlier words.

“No, you did not
ask. And yes. ’Tis my choice.” He took a deep breath and summoned his
long-practiced pragmatism. Clearing his throat, he adopted a passive tone. “As
I said, I made a mistake with the baron. He is an old man. I will choose
someone younger who can give you children. And I promise that you will have the
final say in the matter. Mayhap you will even fall in love.”

She frowned and
wrote,
I do not want children
.

Surprised, Alex
was silent for a long moment, observing the stoic finality in her stiff posture.
Her head was bent as she picked at the remains of her pasty.

“Look at me,
Katherine.”

When she did, he
saw tears brimming on the edges of her eyes. The shame filling her face stunned
him.

“What happened
to you?” Then, the reason struck him. “Ah. The fire. It destroyed your womb.”

Katherine shook
her head.
Two children, neighbors
, she wrote.
Trapped
.
Died
.
She held up her hand with the thick pink scar slashed across her palm. Then,
she pulled the paper toward her again and added,
door handle
.

Alex made a
sound under his breath. “How terrible. When you tried to open the door to get
to them, the handle seared your palm.”

She nodded.

“The children
died because you couldn’t get to them. And now you feel you do not deserve
children. Is that it?”

Katherine didn’t
respond, and wouldn’t meet his gaze.

He leaned in,
wishing he could pull her into his arms to comfort her. “’Tis not your fault.
You did what you could. Did no one else help you? The children’s parents? Where
was your father?”

All dead
.

Yes, her
traitorous father was dead, and that was why she was with him right now. He
took her hand and watched it disappear in his. It was time to tell her what he
knew about her past.

When she looked
up at him, however, he found that the words, however gently he could say them,
wouldn’t come. Why add more suffering to what she had already been through? The
information could wait.

He noticed then
that her gaze slid from him to a point just off his right shoulder. Her hand
within his clenched.

Alex turned.
There at the door stood Ellis Potts, Earl of Rochester—Katherine’s
ex-betrothed.

“Why, there sits
Lord Drayton with his prize,” Rochester called out with a laugh. “Have you
exacted your revenge?”

Katherine fell
straight into a coughing fit. Ellis. What was he doing here? The shock of
seeing the man who had broken their betrothal because of her injury was almost
more than she could bear after hearing that Alex would never allow her into his
life.

And what was
this talk of revenge?

The earl curled
his lips into an arrogant smile and sauntered to the table. “Do you travel to
London or have you just been there?”

“Going,” Alex
snapped. He stood, rigid as a lion scenting prey, and turned to Katherine.
“Would you like to leave, my lady?”

Taking calming
breaths with her hand over her chest, Katherine nodded and rose, observing the
fine silver embroidery that glistened on Ellis’ blue satin jacket and petticoat
breeches. By his side stood a woman with black hair, richly dressed in lime
green with pink underskirt and pink ribbons on her full sleeves.

Both of them
looked as if they should be making merry at Whitehall instead of visiting this
humble inn.

“Then we have
just missed you, I am afraid,” Ellis said. He turned to his companion and
introduced her as Mrs. Rosemary Mallet. “Mrs. Mallet, these are acquaintances
of mine, Lady Katherine Seymour and Lord Drayton, Alexander Fletcher.”

“Your servant,
Madam,” Alex said, and bowed.

Acquaintance. In
the weeks since he had put her in his carriage and walked into his house
without a backward glance, Katherine had been reduced to an acquaintance. She
returned his smirk with contempt.

Mrs. Mallet’s
eyes sparkled. “Lord Rochester has—”

Ellis placed a
possessive hand on her arm. “We are traveling to an estate in the country.”

Ellis’ voice was
coarse from too many nights of drinking and raucous yelling. And had he grown
fat in the weeks since she had seen him? No. He hadn’t changed. Katherine had
simply grown used to seeing the tall, athletic build of the man beside her.

Ellis glanced at
her hands and then down at the table before inclining his head toward Alex.
“She doesn’t have her slate, I see. Thank heaven. That squeaky chalk—why, my
teeth rattled each time she used it. “Tell me, did it bother you so much that
you banned her from it?”

Katherine leaned
down and plucked up the quill. How she wished she had her slate and chalk. She
would ensure that Ellis’ teeth rattled right out of his mouth.

“Of course not,”
Alex said. “It fell and broke accidentally.”

Ellis chuckled.
“Accidentally. Good one, Drayton. Should have destroyed it myself.”

“I didn’t say I
destroyed it.” Heat laced Alex’s voice.

Katherine
straightened with her paper and waved her hand for attention.

Ellis gave her a
familiar condescending glance, and sighed. “Oh, gads. I haven’t missed this.”

Poltroon! How
she wished she could spit the word at him.

Alex read her
words and locked eyes with her. “We’ll talk later. Now is not the time.”

Something in his
eyes kept her from insisting on an immediate explanation about this revenge
Ellis spoke of. With growing unease, she lowered the paper.

Ellis had also
read it. “I am surprised you’ve waited, Drayton. But why tell the mute now?
What’s the occasion?”

The mute?
The
mute
? Appalled, Katherine glared at Ellis. He’d never referred to her thus.
Not in her presence, anyway.

Ellis knew he’d
caused a stir. He smiled and regarded Alex, who towered him by a head or more,
with mischievous challenge in his eyes.

Alex’s hand
moved with cool surety to his sword hilt. “If you wish to play, Rochester, the
muddy ground outside will make for an amusing duel. Especially when I bury your
face in the muck.”

Ellis blanched.
He was clearly unused to being called on his words. “Dueling is illegal,” he
sputtered. “The king made it so just last year. ’Twould land us both in the
Tower.”

“If you please,
sir, your table is ready,” the serving girl said from behind him.

Ellis regained
his poise by snarling at her. “I am talking to friends. You will wait.”

Around them,
people had stopped their conversations and began watching the exchange.

“We are not your
friends, Rochester,” Alex said. “And the next time you refer to my betrothed as
‘the mute,’ I will challenge you whether it is illegal or not.”

Katherine heard
only one word from that declaration.

“You will do no
such thing. Do you know who I am?” Ellis’ face was pale.

“Oh, yes,” Alex
said, placing his arm around Katherine’s shoulders. “I know perfectly well who
the bloody hell you are, and what you did to her.”

Ellis was quiet
for a moment, his eyes sliding from Alex to Katherine and back again. He
smiled, and his voice became velvet. “Lord Drayton, would you care to have a
drink with me later?”

Katherine shot
the earl a look of suspicion. What was he doing?

“Certainly,”
Alex replied. I will meet you here after our ladies have gone to sleep.”

“Until later,
then.” Alex turned to Katherine. “Come, my lady. I will see you to your room so
you may rest.”

“Surely resting
is not what you have in mind, Lord Drayton,” Ellis said. “Enjoy yourself. I already
had my fill of her.”

Katherine
whirled back to Ellis, her hand raised to slap the lying words from his mouth.
Alex caught her arm at the elbow and tucked it deftly under his.

“I will handle
this,” he murmured in her ear. He turned and gathered the papers, quill, and
ink from the table, then paid for their meal and steered Katherine from the
room. “A bumblebee in a cow turd thinks himself a king,” he said to her as they
ascended the steps. “What a pretentious ass.”

Katherine could
only shake her head. Ellis had always acted arrogant, but until he had cried
off their engagement, she’d thought that under his glittering cravat brooch
beat the heart of a kind man. Now she knew what a vile person he really was.
Why had her father insisted on pursuing a marriage contract with him?

More on her
mind, however, was Alex’s reference to her as his betrothed. She stopped him in
the hall by his door and raised her brows in expectation.

He knew what she
asked, and waved his hands in agitation. “I do not know why I said it. ’Twas a
protective gesture, nothing more.”

But his eyes
revealed his true feelings. She saw his need for companionship as clearly as
she’d heard his declaration of solitude. As wrong as she had been about Ellis,
she knew she was dead on in her instincts about Alex.

Wearily, she
turned to walk to her room. Only when the words from his lips rang true to
those in his heart would she gather up her scattered hope.

“Katherine.”

Facing him once
more, she waited. He stood for a moment, his eyes moving from her forehead to
her lips in unhurried study. “He didn’t deserve you,” he said softly. “You are
so beautiful. All of you. Body and soul.”

His words
sounded as if he had carefully wrapped them in silk and then spun them loose in
slow, flowing cadence.

He grasped her
hand and kissed her palm, then let it go and slid his hand around the back of
her head.

Lowering his
head, he kissed her amidst a clatter of the inkwell, pen, and papers he dropped.

She welcomed his
mouth on hers, his arms enfolding her like a blanket. She pulled him closer, to
deepen the kiss.

He did.

The warm,
masculine scent and feel of him made a joyful, throbbing haze flow through her
body. All the world disappeared except for Alex.

He moaned deep
in his throat as he reached behind her and opened his door. Backing her into
the room, he closed the door and pressed her against it. “My love,” he murmured
into her neck, and then found her lips again as his hand slid up her waist and
cupped her breast.

The words cut
through her sensual fog.

His love. After
telling her that he’d love no one, he called her his love.

Why did he romp
with her emotions like this? A surge of anger made her push at his shoulders.
He owed her more than this hilly ride of insecurity. She deserved more.