Recklessly Yours (36 page)

“Go on.”

“I felt an unaccountable trust, as if the rain-soaked ground posed no threat whatsoever. And then there was Colin. Oh, when I saw him, I . . .” Holly swallowed and gained control of her breathing. “I don't know quite how to say this to you.”

Maria Ashworth grasped Holly's chin between her fingers with surprising force. “Tell me. Leave nothing out.”

“Well, I . . . I'd have gone anywhere with him, let him sweep me up . . . and I'd have done anything. . . .”

“You'd have trusted him.”

“Yes, completely. It sounds mad. A woman in my position, entertaining such notions . . .”

“Not mad, my dear. Understandable. It was
her
.”

“Briannon?”

“Her spirit . . . guiding the ponies, and guiding you. This is an ancient land. Briannon's land. You felt what she wished you to feel. As you watched the herd, her spirit entered you and revealed the truth to you in its baldest form.”

“What truth, Your Grace?”

A slow smile spread across Maria Ashworth's face. “Do you truly need me to tell you?”

No. What she'd felt on the moor was no different than what she felt every time Colin took her in his arms; every time he kissed her, touched her. She loved him, and she didn't need an ancient Celtic princess to tell her that.

“There is more.” The woman gestured for Holly to come closer, as if she wished to whisper a secret in her ear. The duchess pressed a palm to her cheek. “There is a part of the curse the men of this family have long since dismissed. Until now it is only passed down through the women, from wife to wife.”

The curse again. Holly subdued a groan of frustration. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“Briannon's curse can be broken forever if the lord of this land, which in our modern times means the duke, were to take a bride of royal blood.”

Even before Holly fully realized the meaning—and consequences—of those words, her heart began to sink, and sank deeper still as the duchess went on.

“It must be a love match, pure and simple. Nothing less will do. And that is why the Ashworth men dismissed it long ago. For centuries, you see, they scrambled to take royal brides, but to no avail. That is because they married for advantage, not love, and without love the curse cannot be broken.”

Holly thought of Lady Penelope Wingate, the young woman with the corkscrew curls and an overabundance of jewelry who had simpered at Colin the night of the Ashworths' ball. “Then . . . when Colin marries. . . .”

“If he loves and marries a woman of royal blood, a princess, the Exmoor curse will no longer hold its power over us.”

“And the colt won't have to be returned to the estate.” Holly's voice came small and flat.

The duchess shrugged. “The colt should be returned because it is the right thing do to. Because it belongs here, with others of its kind, and because my son had no business removing it from the moors.”

“Why did you tell me this, Your Grace?” Holly asked in a whisper as she sank back against the pillows.

But the woman only regarded her with eyes that were so like her grandson's.

Holly realized that in relating her experiences on the moor, she had openly admitted her feelings for Colin. Maria Ashworth obviously disapproved, and she sought to discourage what she perceived to be an affection that would come to naught. To her mind, Colin must marry a woman of royal blood—a woman like Penelope Wingate—not a common miss like Holly.

Well. The duchess needn't have bothered. However Holly might feel, Colin had apparently made up his mind. His heart lay imprisoned within a wall of self-sacrifice, thick and secure. Each time Holly discovered even the slightest gap, he hurried to seal it tight.

The greengrocer's question shivered palpably in the rain-chilled air and sent ripples of tension through the unhappy group. If Colin could only make them understand that ancient curses didn't exist, and superstition couldn't hurt them . . . but how to break through centuries of narrow thinking?

Besides, there were times when he half believed the curse himself. Holly's accident today could easily be seen as the curse at work. Of course, a series of factors had contributed to her falling into the stream, but these people would argue that the curse had caused every one of his so-called factors to fall neatly, lethally into place.

If he were to deal with them at all, he realized, it must be in terms they could understand and believe. And he must be utterly honest, because men like Ed Harper and even the quiet Jon Darby could spot a liar like a hawk spots a mouse dashing across a field. They'd be on him just as quickly, with equal fierceness.

“I'll bring the colt home, but I'll need more time.” He held up his hand at their grumbles. “A month at most.”

Harper visibly bristled. “A week!”

Colin shook his head. “It could take longer than that. I had the colt—upon my word, I had it—but it was stolen along the road between Ascot and here.”

“Ascot?” The information sifted through the group. The preacher held up his arms to quiet them and turned back to Colin.

“Why Ascot?” the man asked. “The horse is a mixed breed, useless for the racetrack.”

Colin hesitated. He had enough trouble without mentioning the queen's part in all of this. Finally, he settled on an abbreviated version of the truth. “My father had a notion to test the colt's strength against its Thoroughbred counterparts. He didn't understand the damage he might inflict—”

“Your father's an arrogant sot.” Harper's voice boomed, interrupting him for a second time.

Yes. But Colin would accomplish little by publicly agreeing with that assessment. Instead, he assumed his own most arrogant expression and prompted Cordelier forward until he forced the villagers to part ranks. “Since my father is not here to defend his actions, you've no choice but to deal with me. Here are my terms: this village and our tenant farmers have, and always will have, the support of the Ashworth family. Take account of your recent losses. Any that have occurred through negligence on our part will be immediately recompensed, and that includes roofs that should have been repaired at winter's end, riverbanks that should have been reinforced, and fields that should have been properly drained.”

Indeed. The estate records offered indisputable evidence that his father had let his responsibilities toward these people lapse in the most shameful way. While he had demanded payment of the rents the very day they were due, he as often as not reneged on the age-old obligations of landlord to tenant. They had every right to be angry, even to lash out, but as acting head of the family and acting lord of Briarview, Colin had no choice but to deny them that right, for the result would be chaos.

“Return to your farms and your shops,” he told them in the tone of a commander, “and resume the work you've abandoned in recent weeks.”

“And the colt?”

His nostrils flaring, Colin turned a cold glare on Ed Harper and hoped his next words would not prove a bald-faced lie. “The colt will be returned, and soon. That is all I can tell you for now. Be the men you were born to be and stop making matters worse,” he added in a softer voice that he knew would strike at their very hearts.

He wasn't wrong. At the inference that they were behaving as less than proud Devonshire men, they traded sheepish looks. Their heads down, shoulders hunched against the damp breezes, they began to disperse. Colin watched them go, relief pooling in his gut.

“You've perhaps borrowed yourself a bit of time, my lord.”

He jumped, the sudden movement sending a shiver through Cordelier's flanks. In watching the others and willing them to keep their feet moving away from Briarview, he hadn't noticed that the preacher had lingered.

Turning his hat slowly in his hands as if it were a ship's wheel, the man leveled a shrewd look up at him. “But if you don't make good on your pledge, sir, they'll be back.”

Colin gazed out at the village rooftops huddled at the foot of Briarview's sloping approach. The faint curls of smoke rising from the chimneys reminded him of all that could be lost. Bleakness filled his spirit. “I know.”

The preacher set his wide hat back on his head. “In the meantime, I'll see what I can do to keep them calm.”

Colin turned Cordelier around and started back up the drive. Tomorrow at first light he would leave here and begin his search for the colt. He would also begin distancing himself from Holly. If he'd had any doubts about involving her in his family's troubles, today's incidents confirmed his qualms. His world held neither safety nor security for her.

Upon happening to glance up, he saw her peering out at him from her bedroom window, and flimsy denials of that last assertion began eroding his resolve. Despite the haven he had made for himself in his work and his circle of friends, he found the prospect of resuming his life without her too grim to contemplate. Without Holly to share them with, his future successes would mean next to nothing.

She raised a hand to wave, then let her fingertips stray to the base of her throat. He could all but feel the beat of the pulse there, taste it on his lips. The first stirring of lust tugged at his core. With a sweep of her lashes she broke the connection of their gazes, but the blaze of her scrutiny had seared a path straight from his heart to his loins.

Christ. What was she doing out of bed? Did she never exercise the slightest caution? Must she always test her limits, as she continually tested his?

His limits proved short enough as he found himself trotting Cordelier back to the stables and cursing the slowness of even that speed. The image of her fresh features and voluptuous curves sent ideals of duty tumbling away like so much water beneath a broken bridge, leaving him with a rising passion that would not be contained. When the groom ran out to take Cordelier, Colin leaped from the saddle.

He found her waiting for him in the open doorway of her bedchamber. The near run that had brought him across the grounds and up the curving staircase had left him slightly breathless, but the rise and fall of her bosom declared her to be no less so. The borrowed nightgown still swathed her shapely body, the soft fabric hinting at so much more than it concealed, the ruffled collar framing her pale face and fever-bright eyes.

Seeming impossibly large, those eyes held him, mirroring the emotions roiling inside him. Even as his own passion fired anew at the sight of her, so too did some inner yearning infuse her cheeks with heightened color.

He strode to her from the landing. “Where is my grandmother?”

“Resting in her room.”

“How long ago did she retire?”

“Not long, perhaps a quarter hour.” A small frown etched her forehead. “She winked at me and told me the day's excitement had wearied her, and that she'd see us at tea. Why do you suppose she winked?”

“I couldn't say.” Nor did he, at that moment, care. His lust flared like dry kindling as he considered various possibilities for filling the time.

With single-minded determination, he closed the distance between them, forcing Holly to back up into the room. He followed her inside, shut the door, and for added security turned the key in the lock.

The startled look on her face doused him like a bucket of cold water. He went still, arms at his sides. “Now is when you should probably slap me and scream.”

She hesitated for an instant. Then her expression changed to one of certainty, a look that transformed her from innocent girl to a woman who knew what she wanted. “Now is when you should take me in your arms.”

He went to her and swung her off her feet. “I don't wish to hurt you. The accident earlier . . .”

“I am as right as rain.” Her arms slid easily around his neck. “I've had it on the authority of a very wise duchess.”

Perhaps, but he certainly didn't want to think about his grandmother now, or about curses or missing colts or the rabble that was eager to storm Briarview's gates. Shoving those thoughts away, he dipped his face to the curve of her neck and immersed himself in the fragrance that was uniquely hers. Holding her firm against him, he carried her to the bed, laid her down, and leaned to cover her with his torso. His lips pressed to hers, he let his nightmares melt away into the warm flush of her skin and heady dream of loving her.

Yes, merely a dream, but one he needed to believe in if only for a few more hours. He needed to pretend that something in this world possessed the power to vanquish ancient curses.

And if anyone held that power, it must be the brave and bold Holly Sutherland.

 

For the second time that afternoon, tears pricked at Holly's eyes. She lay on her side, nested in a deep depression in the down mattress, her back framed by Colin's length, his strong arm draped around her waist. His body warmed her even through the layers of clothing they wore: her chemise, his shirt and trousers. His steady, even breath gently stirred the curls at her nape. The beat of his heart thudded reassuringly against her spine.

She felt utterly at peace . . . and utterly floundering in turmoil.

Her breasts ached with the irrepressible yearning to feel his palms on them once more. Her body at once thrummed with pleasure and echoed with a hollow note. Despite his lifting her chemise and exploring all of her—or nearly all—once again her deepest feminine core had not been breached. And while she knew she should rejoice in that, she couldn't dismiss a profound and crushing disappointment.

Nor could she help wishing that Colin Ashworth were not such a gentleman.