Kathryn Smith (27 page)

Did she want to hear Brave’s feelings? Not if it included all the virtues and aspects of Miranda Rexley, no she didn’t.

She kissed her mother on the forehead. “Sleep well, Mama. I’ll come back this evening.”

“Take care, dearest,” Marion advised, as Rachel rose to her feet and strode across the carpet. “Don’t do anything rash.”

A dull ache twisted Rachel’s chest as she opened the door. “I won’t, Mama,” she replied over her shoulder. “The consequences are becoming far too painful.”

B
undled up against the late-afternoon chill, Rachel went for that walk she so desperately needed. The rain had stopped, leaving nothing but bitter dampness and grass that soaked her boots and darkened the hem of her skirts as she strolled down the smooth path that led from Wyck’s End to the river. It seemed the perfect place to think about Brave and their relationship.

Standing on the bank beneath the oak tree, Rachel watched the dark water as it navigated its course. How nice to have a path laid out for you and all you had to do was follow it. The river of human existence had far too many little brooks and tributaries—too many places for a young woman to get caught up in and lose her way.

So Rachel had set her own path. It had all seemed so perfect, so definite until Brave hung upside down from this old tree and pulled her to safety and into his arms. He had saved her and damned her, it seemed, all with one heroic act.

Miranda Rexley had committed suicide by drowning. The
irony of it was not lost on Rachel. How had it affected Brave? What had gone through his mind when he came through the trees and saw his chance to save a young woman from drowning? Had he thought of his lost love, or had he simply acted?

And when he pulled her from the water, had he been saving her or Miranda?

Oh she knew what he’d told her, and for the most part, she believed him. But at that moment certainly his lost love must have crossed his mind.

Her mother had been right about her pride. It was wounded. Battered in fact. She’d never gotten much attention from young men because of her circumstances. No one in their right mind wanted to align themselves with Sir Henry, and so Rachel had never really been courted, except by David, and even he hadn’t wanted to get under her skirts badly enough to fight Sir Henry. His desertion had hurt, and it made her all the more leery of depending on a man after that, but her heart hadn’t been broken. Rachel had never truly known what it was like to lose her heart to someone.

And now she didn’t know what to do. Could she take a chance on a real marriage with Brave? What if he left her like her father had? What if, like almost every other young man who’d ever courted her, he was only interested in her virginity? There was no denying he wanted her. He’d told her. But what if he lost interest after that? It certainly wasn’t unheard of—young women spent their entire lives being warned about the fickleness of young men’s attentions.

Marrying Brave wasn’t supposed to have been so complicated. It had simply been a way to get out of a bad situation. She’d done what she had to do to get her mother away from Sir Henry, just as her mother had done what she had to do when she married the baronet. Perhaps that was where Rachel got her penchant for rash decisions.

Her mother hadn’t even thought about the consequences
of marrying Henry Westhaver. And even if she had, Rachel had no doubt her mother would have married the ogre anyway. She’d thought only about Rachel’s welfare. Something mother and daughter had in common, because every time Rachel acted impulsively it was with her mother in mind.

Both Brave and her mother thought she didn’t think before she acted. Of course she thought. She thought about what might happen if she didn’t act. Rachel always found the unknown less frightening than her immediate circumstances. How could it possibly be worse? Another thing to blame Sir Henry for.

She’d blame her stepfather for this mess between her and Brave if she could, but she couldn’t. True, she’d seen Brave’s proposal as a way to get her mother away from Sir Henry, but she’d also been thinking of herself. She’d been thinking with the part of her that always dreamed of having a handsome, rich husband who adored her.

Well, two out of three wasn’t bad.

“Well, well. Will you look at what we have here.”

Rachel froze, legs rooted to the ground by pure and icy fear. Somehow, she managed to will her head to turn, to face her stepfather. He sat atop one of his prized horses, not ten feet away. Caught up in her own thoughts and the rushing of the river, she hadn’t heard his approach.

“A little housebreaker.” Sir Henry smiled bitterly as he dismounted. “And without her protector.”

She remained silent. Not because she didn’t have anything to say but because she didn’t want him to hear her voice tremble when she said it. She didn’t even remind him that she’d been let into his house by Potts. It hardly made a difference.

“I was just on my way to Wyck’s End to pay a visit.” He stepped toward her, so close that she could smell the liquor on his breath, see the unfocused gleam in his eyes. “And now I’ll have the countess with me.”

His arm flashed out with surprising speed for a man so deep in his cups. He seized Rachel by the wrist and pulled, hauling her off-balance.

It hurt, but she would rather die than let him know that. Bent at an odd angle because of how he pulled on her arm, Rachel lifted her gaze to his, wondering if he could see how much she hated him.

“Imagine my surprise when I returned home from a hunting trip to find not only my wife gone but my butler gone as well.” He smiled, a twisted, humorless expression that made Rachel’s heart heavy with fear. “Even more of a surprise was news that you had apparently paid me a social call earlier in the day—with a pistol.”

Rachel clenched her jaw to keep her chin from trembling. “What do you want, Sir Henry?” As if she didn’t know.

He gave her arm a quick jerk, almost sending her falling to her knees as he began to walk. He hauled her along behind him, his thick fingers cutting off the flow of blood to her hand.

“I want my wife, Lady Braven. And you’re going to give her to me.”

For the first time in easily a dozen months, Brave wanted to hit something. He wanted to bruise his knuckles until sweat dripped off his brow and he was too tired to think. Maybe then, Rachel would get the hell out of his head for a while.

He raced upstairs, to the old nursery he’d converted to a sporting room. It was where he and Julian and Gabe would box or fence when his friends came to visit. For the last two years it had been draped in holland covers, but all of the equipment was still there.

It was the large, sand-filled leather bag hanging from the ceiling that he wanted. He didn’t even bother to brush the dust off it before starting to pummel it with his fists.

He’d lost such control of himself after Miranda’s death that he’d spent much of the last dozen or so months making up for it by keeping himself in complete control. He had so much bottled up inside him it was a wonder he hadn’t lost his mind.

Although he couldn’t say he wasn’t losing something infinitely more valuable to his wife. She awakened feelings in him, tender feelings, and urges that weren’t always sexual, but protective and possessive. For all her impulsiveness, her stubbornness, he wouldn’t have her any other way. And when she wept, all he wanted to do was fix the world to her liking so he wouldn’t have to see those tears anymore.

He struck the hard leather, feeling the blow all the way up to his shoulder. That was for making such a cake of himself over Miranda.

Another blow. That was for being such an idiot after she killed herself.

He struck again, and again, until his fists were a blur of motion and his shoulders burned. Finally, he collapsed to his hands and knees. His arms shook under his weight.
That
was for thinking he could fix the past by marrying Rachel and not have to face the consequences in the present and the future.

Brave rolled onto his back. The wood was hard and un-yielding against his shoulder blades. He was hot and sweaty, his muscles tired. All those years of his youth spent trying to be a true Corinthian, and he’d never realized just what kind of healing properties a good sweat offered.

Things seemed so much clearer now. He knew what he had to do. He had to tell Rachel how much he cared about her, that he wanted to make love to her, not to Miranda or anyone else for that matter. He would have to be completely honest with her. She wouldn’t like it, but hopefully she would forgive him for having been such a stupid, misguided ass.

He’d certainly spend the rest of his days begging for her
forgiveness if that was what she required. And he could think of several other things he could do while on his knees.

“Balthazar, what are you doing on the floor?”

Smiling, Brave didn’t bother to open his eyes. “I’m thinking, Mama. Would you like to join me?” He knew she had told Rachel about Miranda, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to be angry with her. No doubt Rachel had given her little choice.

Brave had been the only child his mother and father had that lived. Three infant brothers and one sister were buried in the small family crypt behind the village chapel. As a result, Annabelle Wycherley had taken more interest in her son than other mothers of her rank and generation did. She would often sneak up to this very room and play games with Brave. One of those games had been lying on their backs in the middle of the floor and “thinking” out loud about anything that came to mind. Sometimes it was something as foolish as whether or not butterflies had feelings. Once it had been where babies came from.

Brave still wasn’t sure he’d made sense of his mother’s cryptic answers on that one.

He listened to the soft
click
of her heels as she crossed the polished floor toward him. Her skirts rustled, and then he felt the weight of her settle beside him as she sat down. She reached out and placed her hand in his. Brave smiled. He could remember a time when his mother’s hand dwarfed his; now he was amazed by how dainty she was.

“What are you thinking about?”

He opened his eyes. “About what an idiot I’ve been.”

Annabelle smiled. “How wonderful. Most men don’t realize it until it’s too late to change.”

Brave’s lips twitched at that. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he released her hand and wrapped both arms around his bent knees.

“Did my father realize before it was too late?”

His mother’s eyes twinkled. “With a little help.”

Brave’s smiled faded. “Then it seems I’m a little like him after all.”

“A little!” Annabelle’s tinkling laughter echoed throughout the room. “Darling, you’re
exactly
like him!”

That wasn’t what he expected to hear. “Really?”

Annabelle nodded, her expression hard to read in the fading light. “He had a tendency to take everything personally as well. I used to say he wasn’t happy unless he had something to brood about at least once a week.”

Brave had never known that about his father. He’d known him to be a serious man, but he hadn’t seemed the type to waste time blaming himself or worrying over what couldn’t be changed. Would he have been disappointed to have his son turn out the same way?

“Was he proud of me?” He cringed at how needy that sounded.

Now it was his mother’s turn to look surprised. “Every day. And he would be even prouder if he was alive today.”

Brave arched a dubious brow and his mother laughed. “He’d be especially proud of you for what you’ve done for Rachel and her mother.”

But not for the motivation behind it, Brave would wager.

“And what do
you
think of what I’ve done for Rachel and her mother, Mama?” Rising to his feet, he held out his hand to her.

Annabelle took it and also stood. “I’m more interested in what Rachel’s done for you, Balthazar. I think she’s just the kind of woman you need.”

Now this was interesting. “Oh?” He could barely suppress a grin. “Why, because she’s as stubborn, willful, and meddling as you were with my father?”

Shaking out her skirts, Annabelle smiled. “There’s that.
And the fact that between the two of you there’s enough guilt to keep the Church of England in business until the end of the world.”

He laughed at that. His mother always did have a sharp sense of humor.

She stared at him, her eyes filling with tears, and Brave’s laughter faded. “What is it?”

“My boy,” she whispered, her hands coming up to cup his cheeks, “I never thought I’d see you again, but there you are.”

The lump in Brave’s throat swelled until it threatened to choke him. He didn’t want to know how his behavior over the past two years had affected his mother. That was more responsibility than even he could bear. “Let’s go downstairs and have some tea.”

They strolled arm and arm from the darkening room. The sconces in the corridor were already lit as the days were becoming shorter and shorter, and Brave found he preferred their warm glow to the murky daylight that had lit the house up until that point.

Talking to his mother had lightened his heart more than the lamps’ golden glow ever could, however. It gave him hope. Hope that someday the fog that had settled over his life would lift. Already he thought he could see a clearing on the horizon. And that distant sunrise could only be attributed to one person.

Rachel. How she had done it he didn’t know and didn’t care to. All he knew was that his life had been forever altered the day she entered it, and while the future was all the more intimidating for her presence in it, Brave had never looked forward to something quite so much.

It was because of this newfound lightness of being that he was quite unprepared for what was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

Sir Henry Westhaver stood just inside the door, the cold autumn air whistling in past him. He held Rachel by the wrist
in front of him, her arm bent so far behind her back her torso arched. Reynolds and two footmen surrounded them, but no one moved.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Pulling free of his mother’s grasp, Brave hurried down the last few steps.

A sharp gasp from Rachel brought him up short as his feet hit the marble floor.

“Not too close, Braven,” Sir Henry warned. “Or I’ll snap the countess’s arm like a twig.”

One look at Rachel’s mutinous expression and Brave knew she didn’t care if he broke her arm or not, so long as Brave kept her stepfather from reaching her mother.

But he cared.

“What do you want, Westhaver?”

“I want my wife!” Holding Rachel like a shield in front of him, he stepped farther inside. “Tell her to come down.”