I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (6 page)

“Prove it.”

Prove it
.

“P—” Her tongue fumbled. “Prove what?”

“Prove that this isn’t about fear. You aren’t in St. Petroc now. Your family is miles away. Do what you wish,” he added upon the purring growl that was wholly new and alarming. And intoxicating. She felt drunk.

She stared into his black eyes, but now they were not hard. They were hungry. He was suggesting something more than a journey, more than a simple adventure. As he had years ago, he was suggesting him.

He couldn’t be
. Memories were playing tricks on her, making her imagine. And wish.

“I—I don’t need to prove myself to you.”

He shrugged and began to turn away. “As you wish.”

“I don’t want to make this journey in the carriage,” she said upon a reeling breath. “I would like to ride.”

He paused. Assessed her. Made her knees tremble again. “It’s a long road.”

“You’re riding. Why can’t I?”

A suggestion of the provoking grin appeared. “I suspect I’m more accustomed to the saddle than you.”

“Hire a horse for me and I will prove you wrong.”

“And if you don’t?” he said, turning fully to her, and she knew she’d won. He would do this for her.

“Then I will repay you the expense of it.”

He laughed. “I don’t want your money.” He walked to her, the lamplight casting his features in halos of heaven and hell. “What do I get from it?” His gaze dropped, slipping down her body, then slowly back to her face.

He
was
suggesting what she imagined. What she wished.

She tugged her cloak tighter. “The satisfaction of knowing you’re right.”

A slow smile curved his lips. “While that’s tempting, if I am to engage in this wager I’ll want more than that.”

“Name your terms.”

“For each challenge, the winner chooses the prize.”

It was like they’d never been apart. Eleven years, he stood there a man, she a woman, but nothing had changed.

“This isn’t a game, Taliesin.” Her words quivered but she couldn’t care. “You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m being willful.”

“I believe you wish it. I don’t believe that you are convinced you’re up to it.”

“I am. I will prove it to you.” Memories crowded her chest, warning of danger, jumping onto her tongue. “Or you could go, as I said.”

“I’m not leaving you to this,
pirani
. If you imagine I would abandon you alone on the road, then I suggest you employ that imagination otherwise.” He started back toward the inn. “Now, before I haul you over my shoulder and carry you inside where it’s warm and dry, come.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He looked back. “That you’ve made me come into the frozen rain in the middle of the night? I accept your apology.”

“About the chocolate.”

Not quite a smile.

“But don’t imagine I won’t do it again if you provoke me,” she said.

“Believe me, I will. And, yes,” he said into the frigid night.

“Yes?”

“I can be civil.”

“You’re not doing a particularly good job of it.” She went toward him now, her steps more certain upon each tuft of moss. When she came beside him he grasped her wrist and halted her.

“You will lose this challenge,
pirani
. You know that, don’t you?”

The girl beneath her skin, the girl who eleven years ago had packed away her desire, now whispered that losing and winning this challenge wore the same face. “As ever,” she said aloud, “you are wrong.”

He gestured toward the inn. She went because she believed he would in fact haul her over his shoulder if she defied him now. For all his fine clothing and gentlemanly airs, he was still a wild, unpredictable boy at heart. And she did not trust him.

Chapter 5

The Quest

H
e shouldn’t have done it. He should not have allowed the arrogant boy confined beneath his ribs to best him. And he most assuredly should not have touched her after she threw the chocolate at him. Her wrist had been so slender in his grasp, her strength a revelation he was a fool to have forgotten.

Then he’d made the grave mistake of looking at her lips. He’d gotten lost in contemplation of those lips too many times in years past to have made such a blunder now.

He’d gone off, berated himself for a fool, changed his clothing, and gone to the stable to see to his horse. Then he’d seen her walk onto the moor at midnight, a willow sylph with golden tresses.

And he’d done it again.

She drove him insane. She had always driven him insane. Now, however, he’d no business making wagers with her. He was no longer a lad, wrapped around her finger and hungry for her beyond even his understanding then. Yet she could still make him do what he must not.

He still hungered.

“I heard you send Hodges’s boy off,” Treadwell said as he fastened the final line to the carriage. “Fetching a saddle horse for the lady?” He lifted a yellow brow.

Even Arabella’s coachman thought he was insane.

“If she wants to ride,” he growled, “I’ll let her ride.” He’d have the horse by sundown, and after a day in the saddle she would regret it. He ran his hand along Tristan’s withers, seeking steadiness. He hadn’t been so surly in years. Ten or so.

“She’s a taking little thing, isn’t she?” Treadwell said.

Taliesin snapped his head around. Betsy walked toward them, the coachman’s attention fixed on her like a dog on a meat bone.

“She’s sixteen, Treadwell.” But Eleanor hadn’t been more than sixteen all those years ago. Sixteen and in thorough control of him.

“A man can look,” Treadwell said with a chuckle.

And yet, on the moor last night, Taliesin had dared Eleanor to do more than look. Did she understand that? He doubted it. She’d never had any idea what her eyes shimmering with longing did to him. Had always done to him. She thought he’d wanted to be wild, but she had it entirely wrong. He’d come by his wildness naturally. Learning to control it had been his greatest challenge. He’d done it for her.

But this time he didn’t need help from her or anyone else to maintain control of the situation. This time he knew how to approach the challenge. Forget about the fire in her eyes in the darkness. Forget how it felt to touch her. And completely ignore his need to show her what she might have had if all those years ago she had waited for him.

THE
WIND
WHIPPED
harder as they approached the coast, the carriage dipping to a lull in the valley before ascending the final hill. Abruptly, the ocean appeared, frothing gray and white beneath February’s weak sun.

“Coming to the crossroad soon, sir,” Treadwell called from the box.

The foundling home where Martin Caulfield had discovered the three sisters was tucked in a crevice two miles beyond the northern edge of the village that they headed toward now. They would avoid the orphanage. Nothing could be found there. In that fishing village where the little girls had washed ashore twenty-three years ago, Eleanor intended to begin her search.

A bell on the wharf rang, and a trio of weathered old fishermen lifted their heads as the carriage drew to a halt before the inn at the base of the village. At the feet of the buildings layered two deep along the rise of the coast, a strip of sand glowed silvery-gold in the late-day sun, stretching to a wharf where fishing boats that had already returned for the day were securely moored. Gulls circled overhead, white and gray against the pale sky. The place was quiet now, a sleepy wintertime village that, come summer, would be bustling with traders and merchants.

“A prettier spot I’ve never seen,” Treadwell exclaimed as Taliesin dismounted. “Now you take care there,” he said to the boy who’d come from the mews alley toward the carriage horses. “Morgan le Fay will take a bite out of your arse if you snag the rein.”

Taliesin walked forward and gave his mount into the boy’s hand. “This is Tristan,” he said with a hand on the stallion’s back. “Care for him as you would for your own mother.”

“Don’t have a mother, sir. Just me ol’ da, an’ he’s out on the boats all but one Sunday a month.”

“Then care for him as you would care for a gold coin, and I will see that you have a gold coin in return for it.”

The boy’s eyes flared and he led Tristan away carefully.

Taliesin went to the coach, but the door burst open before he reached it and Eleanor flew out. Eyes bright, she scanned the beach.

“I remember this place,” she said, the wonder of a girl in her face. “But how could I remember it? I wasn’t but four at the time.”

Her maid poked her head out of the opening. “Well, I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, miss, that’s for sure.”

Eleanor smiled, and Taliesin’s throat thickened.

“Will you, Betsy?”

“Yes, miss. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the sea.”

“How perfectly delightful for you.” Her eyes were soft now in honest pleasure. “Then I am glad we set off on this journey after all.” Then her gaze came to him. It darted away swiftly. She was shy today of the challenge he had offered her the night before, apparently. But then her shoulders straightened beneath her cloak and her jaw set, delicate lines of bone and flesh he had once longed to caress. “Let us be about our task then, shall we?”

NO
ONE
HAD
anything to tell her. While the maid dozed in a corner of the taproom, Eleanor walked from shop to shop, emerging from each with a firmer step and averted face. From the base of the street, Taliesin traced her progress until she reached the end of the long row of buildings. She returned to him.

“Nothing,” she said as she drew near. The breeze lifted the shimmering locks peeking from beneath her bonnet, and ruffled the hem of her cloak. “Some of them recall our wrecked ship, but no one has memory of a man searching for his three tiny daughters.”

“Did you expect it?”

“I did not. Of course. Don’t be smug.”

“I’m not being smug.” Rather, he was having trouble ordering his thoughts. He’d never in eleven years imagined he would be alone with this woman again. He had never imagined he would want to be, and that he would want to touch her with the intensity with which he wanted to touch her now. “I hope you will find what you’re searching for.”

She stared at him for a stretched moment, her brow creased in concentration. So familiar. So many times she’d looked at him like this, her eyes upon him but blind to him, her thoughts traveling elsewhere.

Then abruptly she walked toward the barricade that ran along the top of the beach. Grabbing up her skirts under her elbow awkwardly, she set off across the rocks. She stumbled and slipped.

He moved forward. “You will—”

“No!” she called over her shoulder, her fingers tangling in the ribbons of her bonnet. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t stop me.” The ribbons flailed in the wind, and the bonnet jerked from her head. It tumbled away along the rocks. She took no notice, instead continued on.

“I don’t know what you’re doing to try to stop you from it,” he said across the wind.

Strewn with rocks above, the crescent beach stretched to the water, a cove of lapping waves protected from the force of the sea by the wharf. She walked straight for the water’s edge, slipping and tripping on the stones, her skirts billowing out in the cold wind.

He crossed the rocky border and followed at a distance. The sun was dipping low over the ocean, setting the water aglow in bronze and pink. Gulls overhead called as though urging her on.

Two yards from the water she paused to throw off her shoes. Then she rucked her skirts to her knees and strode into the water. She yelped, and laughed, and continued walking.

That water had to be half a man’s body heat. At best.

“What are you doing?”

“There is a shallow rocky shoal a few yards ahead,” she called back, her ankles entirely submerged, steps fumbling. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth. “You can see it from the inn.” Her skirts dipped into the ocean. She grappled with them and her knees peeked out. “Since the tide is now low, I’m going to stand on it. I’ve never waded in the ocean before.” Her voice pitched high. The frozen water, no doubt. “I have gotten very close. I’ve sat on beaches for hours. But never once in my twenty-seven years have I waded.” She cast him a glance of wide-eyed mischief that went straight to his gut. “And now you must too.”

“Yet I have waded in the ocean before, and in fact I mustn’t now. It’s February.” Pleasure collected in his chest. This was the girl he’d known, the girl of erratic modesty and absolute delight.

“Oh.” She took another unsteady step deeper into the frigid sea. “You poor thing. I suppose you’re only brave when it comes to safe little ponds.”

His throat caught.
Safe little pond
. Years ago. Temptation and torture and pleasure so acute he could practically feel it again now.
Safe?
No. Not with her. Never with her, he was beginning to see.

Clearly she was not shy today of the wager they’d struck.

“The climate is somewhat different now than on that occasion.” That occasion that had changed his life. And now she teased, as though it had meant nothing to her. But he’d long since known that.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried that I will take a chill and perish?” she said without turning. “You never were before.”

Before, she hadn’t been curved in every place he wanted to put his hands. Some. But not all. And there hadn’t been tiny lines of laughter at the corners of her eyes. Before, he’d been a boy, driven by a boy’s devotion. Now a man’s desire drove him. God’s blood, she was beautiful with the wind whipping at her tightly bound hair, threatening to tear it free of its bonds. More beautiful than she’d been as a girl, with her sharp nose and gentle lips and laughing eyes that sought him with such longing. And her legs—legs he’d only seen glimpses of before, slender and long—legs that had fed his fantasies night after night.

She stood like a flame, vibrating with daring, the gentle waves lapping around her knees. “Frightened?”

The same taunt he’d thrown at her eleven years ago.

“Not on your life.” He pulled off a boot, then the other, then his stockings. By God, even the rocks were cold. But she had never shied from a challenge. He’d known that when he goaded her last night on the moor. He had known, and he’d done it anyway.

The icy water bit at him like pins. She had reached the shoal and was climbing onto it, her feet sinking deep into the rocky sand that abraded the soles of feet. He went swiftly into the surf, soaking his breeches and biting back on the pain.

She slipped and yelped again, louder—in fear—releasing her skirts as her arms flailed.

He reached forward and caught her. She gasped. Grabbed for him. He dragged her against his chest.

This
.

For eleven years he had been wanting this: her face uplifted to his, her body pressed to his, her lips parted and his hands on her. Often he’d told himself that his memory exaggerated how good it had felt to hold her.

It felt infinitely better.

He held a woman now, her full breasts crushed to his chest and long legs trapped between his. Frigid water and frozen feet be damned. If he stood here with her hips and thighs pressed to his for long, she would swiftly discover how decidedly cold he was not.

But he couldn’t release her. Not yet. Her wide eyes, green from the ocean’s reflection, stared at him as though she had never seen him before. Her hands clutched his shoulders and her breaths came fast. Gilded silk whirled about her cheeks.

“It—” Her throat constricted, a ripple of smooth ivory. “It
hurts
,” she groaned, and hopped up on one foot. “I cannot bear it another
moment
.” She broke away. Grabbing up her skirts, she splashed through the water toward the sand.

Yes, it hurt. But not his feet.

He followed slowly. On the beach she ran to her shoes and threw herself onto the sand to tug them over her soaked stockings. She hadn’t removed her stockings that time long ago either, and he’d seen a gentlewoman’s stockings for the first time in his life. Now sodden skirts tangled about her shapely calves, clinging, revealing, and he stared like the boy he’d been. She struggled with the shoes.

He pulled off his coat, knelt, and snatched the shoes from her hands.

“St-stop that. Wh-what are you doing?” The words came from lips the color of wax, trembling and caught between her teeth. “Give them back.”

He wrapped his coat around her legs and feet. “Accept this gracefully,
pirani
,” he said, holding her feet between his hands and willing the wool to do swift work. He’d seen his cousins lose toes. The winter of 1799 had been especially brutal on Rom living in caravans. If not for the Reverend Caulfield’s barn and the warmth of the goats and horse, he might not be whole now. Or alive.