Her Lord and Protector (formerly titled On Silent Wings) (20 page)

He broke the
kiss and stood looking down at her, his hands pressed to the door on either
side of her head. He lowered his forehead until it met hers. His hair tickled
her cheek.

“I am sorry,” he
said, his voice gruff. “I did it again. I am allowing my body to speak for me.
It will not happen—”

Furious,
Katherine ducked under his arm and went to his writing table.
I am no fool
.
She thumped her hand on the paper in frustration.

He stood beside
her. “No, you are not. You know I want you.” His hands made fists. “I’m the
fool, Katherine. I’m allowing the past to dictate everything I do.” Gripping
her arms, he brought her to her feet. “I want you. But I cannot have you. I
will only cause you pain. Do you understand?”

He didn’t give
her time to answer. He kissed her, his mouth hard and possessive, and then abruptly
let her go.

Reeling,
Katherine dropped into the chair and stared at him, and then propped her elbows
on the table and put her head in her hands.

The man was
impossible.

She heard him
pacing the room, his boot heels ringing on the bare floorboards. “I know two
things. One is that you are making me crazy. You’ve got me tied up in knots
that would put a sailor to shame.”

Katherine raised
her head and rested her chin in her hand. What was he getting at now?

His voice took
on a trace of arrogance. “The other thing I know is that I want no other man to
have you.” His footfalls stopped. “We can marry, you know. You can give me
heirs, and I can carry on my name.”

Katherine jumped
to her feet. Oh, to be able to tell the oaf exactly what she thought of him!
Why could he not admit his feelings? She dashed across the room and jerked open
the door to leave.

“Where are you
going? I’m not finished discussing this matter.”

Oh yes, he was.
This bumbling attempt at a marriage proposal was as close as Alex would ever
come to opening his heart to her. She headed toward her room.

She could tell
by his voice that he had followed her into the hall. “I did not give you permission
to leave.”

She stopped and
spun toward him, and flashed him such a look of disdain that he flinched,
albeit every so slightly. Still, she was satisfied with his reaction, and continued
on to her room.

The seconds
passed as she neared her door. She placed her hand on the doorknob, knowing
that entering her room and shutting the door would shut him off from her
forever.

“Wait. Please.”

Katherine
stopped and turned to him, her chin raised, relief and want making her legs
weak.

“Come back,” he
said softly, his expression contrite. “I am doing this all wrong, I know.”

Slowly Katherine
returned to him, then moved past inside his room.

He took a deep
breath, hesitated, and cupped her cheeks with gentle hands. For a moment he
seemed about to kiss her. But he asked, “Do you want to be my wife or not?”

Gads! She
knocked his hands away and went for the door.

Before she could
open it, Alex grabbed her arm and swung her around to him. “Blast it, I am no
good at poetic drivel. I do not know how to say what I am feeling. But I can
show you.”

Down came his
mouth on hers. The kiss was at once sweet and forceful, loving and possessive.
He thrust his tongue into her mouth with a tender fury that at once thrilled
her and pushed aside all doubts of his sentiment.

A melting
sensation overcame her and she was lost in him, sliding her hands down along
his hips, marveling in his firm physique. She couldn’t believe how quickly he
could dissolve her anger and then solidify it right back into fierce need.

Breathless, she
gasped when he ended the kiss. His lips trailed over her face and neck and his
arms tightened around her in warmth and protection. Hot pulsations pounded
through her and she was vaguely aware that he was backing her up.

Scandal warred
with desire as he lowered her to the bed.

However, he slid
his arms from her, leaving her alone on the bed while he took a chair a few
feet away.

His steady gaze
on hers, he spoke. “My head battles my body, and my heart does the same with my
words. I have closed myself off from emotion for so long that I do not know how
to handle it. And now, it has pierced me through.”

His words,
uttered slowly and with care, caused a deep yearning within Katherine’s heart.
She nodded for him to go on.

“I didn’t have a
happy marriage, Katherine. I do not know how much of it was my fault, how much
harder I could have tried to save her.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows
on his knees and clasping his hands together. His voice dropped. “I am afraid
of doing this again. I am afraid that I will lose you, that you will grow to
hate me, as Mary did. I cannot promise you love. I am not ready for that. But I
pledge to take care of you for the rest of your life. If you will have me.”

Alex moved off
the chair and knelt in front of her. He took her hands in his.

She gazed back
at him, taking in the open, vulnerable expression on his face, and wishing his
heart could be the same.

“My dear lady,”
he asked, “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Late that night,
at a table in the corner of the mostly empty eating room, Rochester poked an
unsteady finger under his peruke and scratched at his head. “Lemmee think. When
I broke the betrothal, I tol’ her it was because I wanted the gold her father
promised, but then my men found nothin’ in the ruins of her house.” His
powdered face, of which most of the white had been rubbed off from lovemaking
with Mrs. Mallet and drinking three pitchers of ale with Alex, even now
expressed his indignation.

Alex set his
mouth in a grin and leaned his arms on the scratched table. “Oh ho! Her father
had gold! How much?”

“Eighty thousand
pounds. Traitor’s money, Charles said. He wouldn’t lemmee have it.” Rochester
gave a dramatic sigh, and Alex fought not to rear back from the earl’s
ale-drenched breath. “So she had no dowry after Charles took the gold. But she
did have the necessary at—at—attributes befitting a man o’ my status. An’ she
would have made for good breedin’, o’ course.”

Alex smiled with
congenial warmth. He wanted the full details of her father’s treason. “I’d like
to tumble with her myself.”

“I never did.
Tried. She wouldn’t lemmee. Wouldn’t let anyone. Wanted t’wait for marriage.”
He shook his head in disgust.

Alex was glad to
hear it. “What else did you tell her?”

“Hmmm. I tol’
her that as a man o’ dis-distinction, I couldn’t take a mute to wife.”

“So you cried
off.” Alex held up his cup in a friendly toast. “Good riddance, say you.”

“I mos’
certainly didn’t cry off,” Rochester sniffed in contempt. “The decision was
‘ers.” He put back his head and drained the last of his ale, then leaned
forward and slammed the cup onto the table.

“Indeed,” Alex
said, refilling the earl’s cup as steadily as he could, yet splashing some of
the dark yellow liquid onto the table. He wanted to pound the man with the
pewter pitcher. Holding it up, he signaled to the tired-looking serving girl
for another.

“Kate seems
well,” Rochester said. “Not at all what I would’ve expected by now.” He stared
into his cup, and the ends of his brown wig curled in the puddle of ale on the
table.

“I was not in
agreement with Lady Castlemaine’s plan to have her punished,” Alex said. “She
is in good health, although she became trapped in her closet and injured her
fingers trying to get out. She has an affliction with small spaces.”

“Since the
fire,” Rochester said with a nod. “She went into a house t’save two children.
They died anyway, an’ she lost her voice.” He shrugged.

“And you tried
to help her? You had doctors look at her?”

“Two. An’ the
king sent his own doctor. All agreed she won’t speak again. But we wouldn’t
‘ave bothered if we knew the truth.” His head began to lower slowly toward his
cup. When his nose touched it, he snapped up his head. “Got to sleep,” he
muttered. “Long day.”

“Ah, but we have
one more pitcher coming,” Alex said. “Let us drink like old friends. I enjoy
your company.” He smiled. “Why had no one told Katherine what her father did?”

Rochester
straightened in his chair and cocked his head. “Oh, she knew. I’m sure someone
tol’ her. I guess she chose t’be silent about it. Not too hard for her to do,
be silent.” He chortled at his own joke, then turned his head and emitted a
long, wet belch.

Alex raised his
brows. “She knows nothing. And you obviously didn’t tell her. How much did Lady
Castlemaine pay you?” He sat back as the server set the pitcher on the table.

“Enough.” Ellis’
face was red and puffy with drunkenness, and his words were slurred and slow.
“It goes back to last year. Lord Seymour wanted Kate to be Charles’ mistress.
Lady Castlemaine paid me to offer her marriage to get her away from the king.
So I courted her. Even after the fire.” He took a long swig of his ale, set the
cup down, and ran the back of his hand across his mouth. “And then, last month
when they found ‘er father’s papers outlining plans to have Kate spy on the
king’s dealings, the agreement ended. So I tol’ everyone she cried off, and
Lady Castlemaine came up with her plan to send Kate to you.” Ellis rubbed his
eyes. “You’re goin’ t’London, right? You will see Charles?

Alex nodded.

“Here.” Ellis
pulled out his pouch and shook out its contents.

Across the empty
room, the server perked up at the sound of coins jingling onto the table.

“If the king
asks, you never saw me.”

The man carried
around an extraordinary amount of money. “I do not want it,” Alex said. He
placed his hands on the table and pushed himself up, knowing he would get no
more information from the earl.

Ellis hesitated,
then gathered up the coins and put them back in their leather bag. The serving
girl slumped back in her chair. “One more thing, Drayton,” he said, his lip
curled in a drunken sneer. “You say Kate knows nothing. When you go see the
king, take her with you. Let her be standin’ there when he tells you about her
pigeon-livered father.”

****

Rolling toward
London the following morning, Alex wouldn’t reveal the details of his
conversation with Ellis. By the time the familiar oily, fecal stench of the
city hit them that afternoon, Katherine was frazzled with curiosity over what
the two men had discussed.

Even more than
that, however, was the knowledge that this very day, she would marry Alexander
Fletcher. So cold he had been upon their first meeting, and how aloof during
her first weeks in his home.

Now she watched
as he turned from the coach window to her, smiled, and took her hand.

“We have a busy
day ahead of us,” he said, and his blue eyes held warmth and promise.

Could this be
the same man who had declared that he wanted nothing more than to get her
married and out of his house as quickly as possible? What had changed him, even
since last night when he’d declared his intention of wishing to remain alone?

She didn’t know.
But she reveled in the peace that filled his eyes.

“I do not
understand how the nobles here consider country life so dull,” Alex said, looking
past her out the window as the coach crossed noisy London Bridge. “I could not
live in London with its crowds and stench. And I can still smell burnt wood.”

As they turned
left down Fleet Street, Katherine saw that in the weeks she had been gone, the
king had made more progress with rebuilding the city. Wider streets that had
previously been narrow and sunless from the overhanging roofs of houses now
boasted buildings under constructions with straight walls built of masonry instead
of wood.

She thought
Alex’s generalization to be unfair. The smell of London seemed simply part of
the life of the city. For her, seeing the din of activity from the coach window
brought a strange homesickness, one never to be rectified as she had no home to
return to.

Perhaps,
someday, she could voice her view of the city to Alex.

Millie stared
from the window. “Will ye look at all the people!” she exclaimed. “They walk in
the street among the horses and carts like they wish t’be killed!”

“They probably
are
killed,” Alex said, although his mind was not at all on the bustling street. He
knew that Katherine wondered at his change of heart, and he himself wondered
why he would invite turmoil and misery back into his house by taking another
wife.

Yet the woman
sitting beside him was neither chaotic nor miserable. Her calm demeanor—calm
unless he riled her, that was—caused a tranquility within him that had replaced
his almost constant tension.

The prospect of
spending the rest of his life with Katherine pleased him. He could be sure she
remained well and happy.