Shattered Dreams (31 page)

He
groaned and ducked his head so he could capture her lips with
his.

“
Don’t ever do that to me again, darling,” he ordered gently.
“Don’t ever leave me.”

“
I won’t,” she promised.

He drew
her closer, and kissed the top of her head when she snuggled
against him with a soft sigh.

“
How is Marcus?” she asked with fearful eyes when they reached
the outskirts of town.

“
He is wounded, but will make a full recovery sweetheart,”
Harry growled. “You all will.”

It
humbled him that, in spite of everything she had been through,
Tilly’s primary concern was for someone else.

He
couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop kissing her; her cheek; her
hair; her lips. Random pecks here and there. When he did pause to
study the road ahead, she quickly drew his head back down to hers
and returned the tender caresses. It was wonderful. It was
everything he needed right then, to assure himself that she really
was alright.

The
passion that surged between them; the sensual awareness; seemed to
only emphasise the fact that they should be together and that
nothing, and nobody, could tear them apart.

“
Are you alright, darling?” he whispered tenderly. “Did they
hurt you?”

He
studied her shadowed face in the darkness of the night. She didn’t
appear to be too badly hurt but he would feel considerably better
once he had her back at the Rectory, and he could take a good look
at all of her in the candle-light.

“
I just had a hit on the head, that’s all. Zack is absolutely
frozen, but Suzanna is just shaken. It was Mr Dandridge and
Cruickshank. Zack said that Mrs Dandridge caught him by the side of
the house once Marcus had been shot.”

“
They can’t hurt you now. We got caught out,” Harry admitted
reluctantly and looked down at her with a frown. “They won’t do it
again,” he promised.

“
I know. They just caught everyone off guard,” she sighed, and
told him about how that washing basket had moved so suddenly down
the line. “Nobody could know what they were planning.”

“
I don’t know what the hell I would do if I lost
you.”

“
I love you,” she whispered suddenly.

Given
everything that had happened, she understood now just how fragile
life was, and that it was foolish to take life, and the people in
it, for granted. She had to make the most out of every situation
that presented itself to her and, right now, wanted to savour every
moment she could share with Harry.

Harry
opened his mouth to speak only to sigh deeply when Barnaby reined
his horse alongside theirs.

“
What do you want to do about the target?” Barnaby asked,
completely oblivious to the precious moment he had just
interrupted.

Harry
gave Tilly a rueful smile, and placed a gentle kiss on her lips
before he turned his attention to the investigation.

“
We are going to get back to the Rectory, so we can all get
warm and dry, and get a good night’s sleep. In the morning, we will
decide what to do about getting Dandridge and Cruickshank behind
bars where they belong.”

Both
Tilly and Harry watched Barnaby re-join the rest of the
group.

“
Sorry,” Harry whispered.

“
It’s alright,” she sighed, a little disappointed that the
moment had been lost. “Do you know where the Dandridges’ have
gone?”

Harry
shook his head. “Stepney Mallet,” he admitted. “Given that they
have lost you though, I am not sure if they are there or whether
they have retraced their steps to look for you. How far did you
get, and how did you manage to escape?”

Tilly
winced and looked a little sheepish for a moment. Harry’s brows
rose and he knew that he wasn’t going to like what she was going to
tell him. He had no idea how he knew, but he just felt a connection
with her that was unlike anything he had ever had with anyone
before.

“
I’ll explain everything when we get back to the Rectory,” she
murmured reluctantly.

Harry
studied her for a moment, but nodded and pulled her even tighter
against him.

It was
nearly an hour before the door to the Rectory closed behind
everyone. The horses had been safely stored in the field beside the
house, and the doors locked firmly against intruders. The men
discussed who was going to keep watch overnight, which left Tilly,
Suzanna and Zack free to go to bed.

“
We need to ask you what happened, Tilly,” Harry murmured
quietly.

He hated
to push them because they all looked thoroughly exhausted, but it
was important that he and his colleagues find out what happened to
them.

“
Where did they take you?” Barnaby asked. He stoked up the
range and placed a pan of milk on to warm through.

Everyone
was soaked, especially Zack who, although he was seated directly in
front of the roaring flames, had yet to stop shaking.

Together
they explained what had happened to them from the moment they had
been dragged off into the woods until their arrival in
Bopple.

“
No wonder you are so bloody cold,” Joshua grumbled as he eyed
the thin material of the women’s hopelessly inadequate dresses.
“You are lucky you chose to walk in the right
direction.”

Tilly
nodded. She knew that she didn’t fully appreciate just how lucky
they had been. The consequences would have been dire if they had
chosen to walk in the wrong direction.

Suzanna
yawned as the warmth began to chase the chill from her fingers and
toes.

“
I am sorry, but I have to go and lie down,” she murmured. “I
am exhausted.”

Nobody
insisted that she stay up and answer some more questions. She
looked as though she was about to collapse.

“
Come on Zack,” Tilly urged as she stood up and moved to the
young boy’s side. “Let’s get you tucked up in bed. You can start to
thaw out and get some sleep.”

She
hated to be apart from Harry, even for a little while so she could
sleep, but she was about to nod off, and stifled a yawn as she
steered Zack toward the door.

“
Is anyone hungry?” Harry asked with a frown. They hadn’t had
anything to eat since breakfast, but they all shook their heads.
Weariness had stripped them of everything apart from the desperate
need to get warm, and sleep.

“
No thank you,” they chorused before they bade everyone
goodnight and shuffled off to bed.

Tilly
sighed as she settled between the sheets in the quiet of her
bedroom.

Her
thoughts immediately turned to Harry, and the relief he had been
unable to hide upon seeing her in Bopple. Her heart swelled with
love and joy and, in spite of the dull aching in her head, she
found herself smiling up at the canopy ahead. She held the
tenderness he had shown her in those first few moments of their
reunion, close to her heart and rolled over in bed with a yawn, but
sleep still eluded her. It was impossible to turn her exhausted
mind to anything other than how wonderful he was.

A quiet
knock on the door made her jump, but she quickly left the bed and
hurried to answer it. Her heart hammered in her chest when she
found Harry outside.

“
I brought you a cup of warm milk,” he whispered.

Tilly
opened the door wider and motioned him inside.

“
How do you feel?”

“
Relieved,” she replied honestly. “A little worried that they
are going to come back and find us here again, but otherwise I am
fine.”

She put
all of her love and unspoken feelings in the look she gave him, and
took the cup off him with a smile of thanks.

Harry
watched her take a sip of the milk, and felt so proud of her that
he struggled not to sweep her into his arms right there and then.
She had been abducted, scared, kidnapped and worried, but she
appeared to be relatively unaffected by everything that had
happened, and now looked wet, but still so damned adorable that he
wanted to kiss her, and keep on kissing her forevermore.

Harry
moved to the bed and drew the covers back. “Get in,” he ordered
softly, and added several more logs to the fire while she moved to
the bed.

He knew
that Barnaby had agreed to keep an eye on Suzanna, and Zack was
being taken care of by Joshua and Joseph. Now that everyone was
safe, and at least starting to get warm, Harry was free to focus
his attention on the one person he wanted the most –
Tilly.

“
Neither of them touched you?” He asked as he approached the
bed, tucked her in and sat on top of the covers beside
her.

“
You mean, apart from when they carried us off like we were
sacks of potatoes?” She asked ruefully, and smiled at him when he
shook his head wryly. “We weren’t overly hurt from our ordeal,” she
assured him as she snuggled into his arms. “Just a little battered
and bruised. It hurt more when we threw ourselves out of the moving
carriage.”

“
What?
” Harry cried in horror. “What
did you just say?”

She
smiled at him and explained what they had done to escape their
captors. “It wasn’t too bad, just a little prickly.”

She
tugged the sleeve of her nightgown back to show him the scratches
on her forearms.

He
leaned forward and sighed at the angry marks that marred her pale
flesh. “They need to be cleaned.”

“
They have been,” she replied quietly.

The air
between them suddenly shifted. His loving gaze met hers in mute
appeal. Even the scant distance between them allowed him to see the
acceptance in her eyes. It was all he needed to see to know that
his presence beside her was welcome.

He
leaned toward her and rolled her backward until she lay beneath
him. All the while his gaze remained locked with hers, searching
for any sign of discomfort, or wariness, but all he could see in
her beautiful green eyes was calm acceptance.

“
Come here,” he growled huskily. “I need to make sure for
myself that you really area alright darling.”

With
that, he lay siege to her senses in a way that rendered her
helpless to deny him anything.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

The
following morning, Tilly awoke to find herself still wrapped
securely in Harry’s arms. It was the most wonderful sensation she
had ever experienced in her entire life.

The fact
that he was busy placing tender kisses along her shoulder made it
even better. She shivered as a wave of anticipation swept through
her when she wriggled backward and felt his burgeoning hardness
against her bottom. Her body still hummed from his tender
ministrations last night, but the now familiar warmth still began
to build deep within.

She
should have been exhausted, but she wasn’t. She should be shocked
and horrified at the sheer intensity of what they had shared last
night, but all she could do was revel in it.

With a
mischievous smile, she wriggled backward a little more and was
rewarded with his answering groan.

“
Minx,” he growled, and rolled her toward him.

Her eyes
opened and she smiled at him.

Dawn had
just started to break over the horizon and cast them in faint
shadows, but it merely added a romantic haze to the room, which
bathed them both in a honeyed glow of contentment. She snuggled
beneath the covers, and stroked his chest as she gazed lovingly up
at him.

“
There was one thing I forgot to mention last night,” he
whispered as he placed tender kisses along her jaw.

She
returned the caress for a moment before she leaned back to look up
at him. “What’s that?”

“
I love you.”

Her
heart flipped and she gazed up at him adoringly. He had just handed
her the moon, and the stars, in one short sentence.

“
I love you so much. I know that we haven’t known each other
very long, but you have come to mean so much to me that there is
nothing I won’t do for you,” she murmured when her voice would
eventually work.

“
I will get us through this with the Dandridges’, Tilly.
That’s a promise. Once this is over, we are going to Cumbia, and
will take a look at that house. If you are happy with it, then we
will turn it into a home. Our home.”

“
I am sure that it will be wonderful,” she assured
him.

“
You don’t know that yet.”

“
I do, because you will be there,” she replied softly. “That’s
all I need.”

His
heart squeezed painfully in his chest and he swallowed harshly
against the lump in his throat. “As long as we stay together
darling, nothing can beat us.”

“
Nothing,” she assured him seconds before his lips captured
hers. One large palm slid tenderly down her side to cup her thigh
and draw it upwards as he settled his weight more firmly over
her.

“
Fire!”

They
both jerked and stared at each other in stunned disbelief before
another shout shattered the silence.